Land of Sky Blue Waters
by sam938
Summary: Thor doesn’t beam Jack up until a week later. Sam accepts the offer to go fishing, but things don’t necessarily work out the way they’re planned. S/J ; UST. Written in 2006; 20 chapters. Some adventure.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

Author: Sam938

Rating: PG 13 some swearing.

Summary: Thor doesn't beam Jack up until a week later. Sam accepts the offer to go fishing, but things don't necessarily work out the way they're planned.

Classification: S/J ; UST. This story, with flights of fancy, is in cannon. Long.

Spoilers: Up to season 3. Some foreshadowing of other seasons.

Archive: SJD; SJFic.

Disclaimers: Don't own them, didn't create them, and this is purely for fun and not profit.

Status: Complete. Written in 2006

Feedback: Yes, thanks! I'd very much appreciate it

--

Part 1.

"…Land of sky blue waters…"

"Yes."

"What?" Jack stood in the doorway of his 2IC's lab and stared at her, dumbfounded, trying to absorb her answer. It was the last thing he expected.

Carter looked away from him, her eyes on the lab bench, and clarified. "Yes. I'd like to go with you."

"uhhh… That's great." Okay… so…she'd accepted. Yeah, okay.

She fiddled with some sort of incomprehensible whatever on the bench. "When are we leaving?"

Jack regrouped and resisted the impulse to run his hands over his face. After all, he was a Colonel in the Air Force. He hadn't worked in Special Ops for nearly twenty years just to fall on his ass, as in, lose his composure, just because his 2IC had accepted an invitation to go fishing, for god sakes. Besides, he'd planned this expedition. He'd thought about it for weeks. The fact of the matter was that Carter had been popping into his head unexpectedly far too much lately, and that was obviously just because he was curious; the same as he'd been curious about Kalwalski when he first met him. He'd always had a slightly unhealthy need to know how his second-in-commands' minds worked.

Kalwalski was a piece of cake; Carter, well, Carter was… unusual. He just needed to get to know her better and then his curiosity would die down. And what better way to do that then take her fishing? Absolutely. Two colleagues fishing. It was an obvious solution.

Yeah, right.

He resisted the impulse to do something fidgety with his hands, and regrouped once more. "Immediately."

With that, she looked up, startled. "Sir, I can't. I have to --"

"Five minutes, Carter. That's enough time to lock down your lab. Then we stop at your place, pick up your gear and we're outta here--off to the airport."

"We're flying?"

"Yeah, we're flying." He stared her down, like a first year cadet found wanting and watched her grimace. Good. He didn't want to be the only one slightly unnerved. Then he backed down, swearing mentally at himself for being an ass. He had invited her, after all. It wasn't her fault that he was -- well… unnerved.

He resorted to sarcasm, his specialty. "It's a little far to walk, and seeing as Thor isn't around to beam us up and back down again, and the Tok'ra aren't sharing anything these days, we're flying."

Carter, as usual, recovered in seconds. "I get the picture, sir. Flying."

"Four minutes."

"Yes, sir." She turned away again and began to shut down the reactor on her bench.

He stared at her back and finally gave into his impulse to rub his eyes with this hands, all the while wondering what latest self-delusional start of insanity had made him ask her to come with him. Then he shook his head to clear it and sighed. He'd known for years that he was certifiable, why should today be any different?


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

The autumn day was crisp with a slight chill in the air, but the Colorado skies were clear and cloudless, as usual. It was a good day to fly. The aspens shimmered their gold in the grove by the side of the parking lot, a slight breeze ruffling the leaves. Jack parked in the space reserved for private plane owners at the Castle Rock airport, and gestured Carter towards the lobby entrance next to the hanger. He could use the Springs airport; it was closer of course, but Castle Rock was smaller and had a distinct advantage -- Tom Hendrickson, an old friend, ran the place.

As he pulled the car into the lot, he thought about the connection. He'd known Tom for close on 15 years, since they'd been stationed together in Germany back in the late 80s. Tom had been straight Air Force, based at Grafenwoehr; he'd been Special Ops, dropping into the area on occasion to coordinate missions when he was given a new assignment in Eastern Europe. But even though their interactions had been infrequent, they'd developed a friendship through the missions they'd served on together. The end of a number of those had consisted of Tom flying a helicopter to pull his ass out of some godforsaken place when things got dicey. Jack had taken a likeness to the guy after the second time it had happened.

The irony of the story was that it was Hendrickson, not him, who'd ended up on disability retirement after the last time Tom had shown up for him and his team. That had been eight years ago. Tom, a Colorado native and grad of the Academy, had come back to the Springs after and had started up the Castle Rock airport. Jack had been coming around ever since; and especially since Abydos.

It didn't take long to locate Hendrickson. He was, as usual, in the back office finishing up paperwork. He looked up when Jack knocked on the office door.

"Hey, Jack, how's tricks?" His black, now slightly graying hair, longer than what the military would allow, flopped down into his eyes as he looked up, bending his large frame over the piece of office furniture Jack had always envied -- an "ergonomically INcorrect" desk.

Jack looked his friend over carefully. Tom seemed the same as he always had to Jack since he'd retired and after his injuries had healed as well as they could. He was clearly happy and a looked a lot younger and healthier than Jack felt at the moment, considering that they were nearly the same age. Maybe there was something to be said for sticking with early retirement.

Nah.

"Same as usual, Tom. How you doing?"

"The regular. It's good to see you back here again." Tom grinned.

"Yeah. Well, things have been busy lately."

"I bet."

Jack just shrugged.

"Yeah. I know. Don't want to hear it anyway. But I'm glad to see you're doing o.k."

"I am."

Tom shook his head, smiling, and then pointed out the window to the airstrip, where a Cessna Skyhawk 172R sat. "There she is, fueled up and ready to go. I had her checked out yesterday. I've logged your usual flight plan for you. Conditions are –well, here, look for yourself." Tom grinned as he handed Jack a print out.

Jack scanned the data. "Nice. Should be a good trip. Thanks, Tom." He looked up, trying to locate Carter, but she was already out of the door, headed for the Cessna.

He watched, amused, as she inspected the plane.

Tom and he followed after her, Tom's eyebrows heading towards the top of his head. Jack ignored him.

"She's a beauty, sir. A Classic. 1985, isn't she? That was the last of the best. They quit making the 172 after this version. I always thought it was a shame." Carter circled the plane. "She does what? About 230 kms an hour?"

"Yeah, although she's had a few upgrades. About 270 now if the wind is right. It's about a seven hour flight to Effie, give or take, depending on the conditions." Jack knew she hadn't heard a word he'd said. He grinned and gestured her into the cockpit when she tilted her head in that direction, smiling.

Tom broke in, staring at Carter as she got into the plane. "She sure is a beauty. "

Jack looked back at Tom, annoyed at the interruption of his thoughts, which were currently focused on enjoying Carter enjoy the plane. That, and the fact that he was pretty damn sure Tom wasn't referring to the plane, was distracting to say the least.

"Want to introduce me?"

Yeah, he was sure.

"Major Doctor Samantha Carter, Tom Hendrickson. Tom takes care of the Cessna."

"Pleased to meet you, Major." Tom was doing his smarmy best to capture Carter's attention, but her eyes were only on the cockpit's instrument panels. Jack somehow felt better.

"Pleasure, Tom." She managed to look up for a few moments and then went back to her inspection. "She's really sweet, sir. Look at the …"

He lost track of her meanderings as she her head bent down to look at the layout of the panels and her voice turned into incoherent mumbles.

Tom, admitting defeat, turned to him with an unholy look in his eyes. "You work together?"

"Yep."

"And you're off to Minnesota for a week? Alone? "

"Yeah."

"Nice."

Jack felt the need to defend himself, which was annoying, because he knew the trip was completely innocent. It had to be. He clarified for Hendrickson. "We're going fishing, for crying out loud. Fishing."

"Sure you are." If Tom didn't stop smirking, Jack thought it was possible that he'd just shoot him, or at minimum, knock him on his ass. He suddenly couldn't remember why he liked Hendrickson anyway.

He tried again. "She's my 2IC. We're going fishing."

Tom stopped grinning. The guy was ex-military, after all. He knew the regs.

They both turned and watched Carter, her smile luminous as she inspected the plane.

"Jack, you have always been insane. But this…"

"Yeah." Jack fiddled with his sunglasses. It seemed like a reasonable thing to do, given the weirdness of the conversation.

"Watch your back."

He sighed, and continued fiddling, watching the glasses open and close yet again. "No need. Carter takes care of that for me."

He damned well hoped he was right.

Thankfully, Tom said nothing more, and looked at his watch. "You're scheduled to depart in fifteen."

Well, that was something that he could deal with. He looked up into the Cessna. "Carter? We're set in fifteen."

Carter looked up from her inspection of the flight panels inside of the plane. "Sorry, sir."

She started to get out, but he waved her back in. "Stay. You can take her to the Sioux Falls airport. We refuel there. That's as far as she can last, given her capacity. It's about four hours, depending. I'll fly the rest of the way. Flight plan's logged in and on the panel."

"Really?" The smile she sent him was stunning. He found himself unable to breathe for a minute; then she looked back at the controls as she reviewed the plan. He swallowed, thankful that he was no longer the focus of her attention.

"Jack…"

Damn Tom for seeing the potential… uhh… problem and possibilities. He diverted the discussion to something innocent. "I know. I know I should have mentioned sooner that I'm letting her fly the Cessna, but she's completely certified on this and a dozen other birds." OK, so he was rambling. That was normal.

"I need the documents." Tom backed down, all business, thankfully.

"Major, give him your credentials."

"Yes, sir."

Fifteen minutes later, they were off the ground.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

Jack kept his mouth shut for the first half hour of the flight. He ticked off the reasons in his head. It was: partially, because he did want to make sure that Carter was as familiar as he had claimed she was with Cessnas, and was comfortable with the undeniable quirks of this one; partially, because he was still recovering from Tom's damned whatever; partially, because he just liked watching her enjoy flying, which was really not good for his sanity; and partially, because he had no idea what might come out of his mouth if he opened it. It was definitely time to shut up.

Luckily, Carter didn't seem to notice that his conversational skills had degenerated into a series of incoherent grunts every time she mentioned another unique quirk of the Cessna that she'd discovered. Or maybe she was just used to him being incoherent. It was hard to be sure.

"Sir, is everything all right?"

"What?"

"Nothing. Sorry, sir."

"Carter, give."

She shrugged and kept her eyes on the horizon. "You just seem a bit more … reticent than usual."

Damn. She had noticed. He translated her "reticent" to his "incoherent" and decided Carter really was probably the best 2IC he'd ever had. Understanding his levels of incoherence was not an easy skill to acquire. He could rarely do it himself.

And damned if he didn't just suddenly realize that he was actually going to have to talk to her on this trip; not issue orders, not…well, hell, it couldn't be that hard. They were on a fishing trip, after all. He could talk about what he usually did when he went fishing with someone else. It was part of the routine. "So, what do you think the Bronco's chances are this year?"

"Excuse me, sir?"

"The Broncos. You know, I think the season's shaping up to be another '87. It's going to be a classic. That would be pretty sweet, don't you think?"

"Uhhh.. sir."

"Yeah?"

"I don't follow football."

"Oh. Sorry. Hockey's my sport anyway. The Avalanche are –"

"Sorry, sir. Don't follow hockey either. "

"Any sport?"

"No, sir."

"Ah. Carter, your education has been severely limited."

"If you say so, sir."

Okaay….sports were out. He was in very serious trouble. What the hell did you talk about with a brilliant theoretical astrophysicist when you weren't half way across the galaxy kicking Goa'uld butt? Slightly panicked, he tried the Cessna again. "So, you were saying you liked the plane."

"Yes, sir, she's a gem. She has her own quirks, but any Cessna worth her salt always does. Remember the problems with the struts on the '79 when she first came out? That was a problem. A sharp wind and the tail would shudder like it was going to separate at any minute, but I never heard of any fatalities because of it. Now this bird has nothing like that."

Jack watched as she made some adjustments to their flight plan and altitude, thinking. He did the calculation. "Carter, you were fourteen in 1979."

"Uhh.. yeah."

"Jacob?"

"Yeah."

"So, Dad was the one who taught you to fly?" He shouldn't be asking; it was just the kind of personal information that was not going to help him get past the "Carter popping into his head at odd moments" problem, but he couldn't seem to stop himself.

"Yep, it was great. We'd go up once a month, sometimes twice, when he wasn't busy."

"It was also illegal. I'm surprised Jacob would take you up at fourteen." He smiled to himself, diverted, and added the info into his file of "what to use against Jacob the next time he started pulling the 'I may be Tok'ra but I'm also a two-star general and you should be following the regs' routine' ".

"Actually, I was twelve when he gave me my first flying lesson."

"You're kidding."

"No." She became suddenly quiet, keeping her eyes on the distance.

He waited for more, now curious.

"It was right after my mother died. Looking back on it now, I think flying, was, well, one of the few ways he could communicate anything, or get away from having to communicate. That was his love; that, and his work. He let me join him occasionally and I just… anyway…sorry, sir. It's not important."

Jack's imagination suddenly saw Sam as a young girl, one who'd just lost her mother and who was trying desperately to communicate, unsuccessfully, with a distant, grieving father. No wonder she was so hard on herself.

He pulled himself up, short. This was **so** not any of his business, or any CO's business. It was personal. After all, he'd never given a damn about what motivated Kawalsky to start flying or join the Air Force. "Sorry."

"It's OK." She cleared her throat. "So, do you think he will?"

"Who will what?" Jack realized he'd missed her question while he'd been thinking.

"Do you think Tom would let me rent her occasionally?"

"The Cessna? No." It came out more harshly than he intended, but the conversation was starting to unnerve him.

"But -- "

"Tom doesn't own the Cessna. I do."

"She's yours?"

The surprise in Carter's voice was unmistakable and somehow annoying. "Yeah."

"I – sorry, sir. I didn't mean to sound surprised. It's just that you've never mentioned -- well, anyway."

He supposed he hadn't. He didn't talk much about anything outside his work to anyone these days, and not to very many people about that. He could feel her curiosity eating away at her. And, after all, she had answered him when he'd butted into her personal life. In the overall scheme of things, he supposed he owed her one.

He gave in and gave her some answers. "I originally owned a third of her. Kawalsky, Patterson and I bought her with bonus money from the Abydos mission. Kawalsky and Patterson were single, and Sara, well, Sara didn't need anything from me by then. Charlie, Freddie and I agreed to leave the Cessna to each other in our wills. Even though I was retired then and they were still on active duty, I never expected to own her outright, just wanted a convenient way to get up to Minnesota, and keep my hand in at flying. I haven't used her much since Freddie died. Hasn't seemed right, somehow."

"I see. Thanks for explaining, sir. I didn't mean to intrude."

"You didn't. Anyway, it's probably good that you know. Given your effect on Hendrickson, he'd probably fall over on his ass getting you set up and forget to mention he doesn't own her."

"My effect?"

"Yeah, Carter, your ef—". He stopped suddenly, realizing she had no clue what he was talking about and that casually mentioning to his 2IC that she was stunningly beautiful would justifiably get his ass kicked. "Let's just say he was impressed with your enthusiasm."

"Oh." She coughed and then added, "I was afraid of that. I guess I have been – uhh."

"Been what?"

She smiled at him, that luminescent smile that always knocked him on his ass. He canceled the thought.

"-- been babbling a bit, sir, about her attributes. Sorry. But as I said, she is a beaut."

"Yes, she is." He grinned; he couldn't help it. "And you can borrow her whenever you like."

"Thank you." If anything, the second smile was even brighter than the first.

He ran the conversation through his mind. So, maybe it had been somewhat personal, but there'd been nothing unprofessional. And the fact of the matter was that flying was something they had in common. He'd talked to Kawalsky a lot about flying after all, and they'd shared war stories. So what if the stories with Carter were slightly more revealing?

He gave up worrying about it. Carter wasn't Kawalsky, thank god, and she was far more interesting. "So, Major, tell me about the other birds you've known and loved."

She looked startled at first, but then raised her eyebrows, smirking, and began to tell her "Cessna" stories. That had led them into a discussion of the various aircraft they'd known, loved, and at times, hated and the stories behind the flying.

As Jack watched her maneuvering the aircraft with grace and surety, he felt himself relaxing, the companionable air washing over him like a warm breeze on the Colorado plains. It was going to be fine.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

Sam sat on the deck, watching the sunrise over the Colonel's pond. She was happily drinking a solitary cup of coffee and waiting for dawn. It was only 5 a.m., but she'd never been able to sleep for long. They'd finally gone to bed at midnight, so she should be exhausted, but she just… wasn't. So, she'd snuck out of bed, looked around a bit, made some coffee and started waiting for the day to begin.

It had been totally insane to accept the invitation, of course. That was obvious. It had been obvious the last seventeen times she'd thought about it, and even the moment she had accepted. Regardless of the Colonel's "two colleagues fishing" explanation, the gossip would probably be off the charts at the SGC. But damn it, they would be wrong and the fact of the matter was that she just didn't care right now. She'd needed a break and she wanted to get to know him better outside of the SGC and away from the carefully crafted persona he pretended to be.

Besides, it was beautiful here. The Colonel hadn't exaggerated when he'd described the clear blue skies and water and the serenity of the place. But he hadn't even come close in explaining how amazing it was to watch dawn break through the crisp fall air, the light shimmering in through the birch and the aspen leaves, now gold and orange in their fall foliage. She tightened her sweater around her, listening as the birds began to wake up and break the silence of the night.

The evening before had been ... surreal to say the least… although it had started out simply enough. After a seven hour flight, where they'd split the flying, the Colonel finally landed the Cessna as dusk settled in on a solitary strip that seemed to be carved out of the forest in what looked like the middle of nowhere.

He got out of the plane, opening a small hanger at the end of the strip, and directed her to maneuver the Cessna in. Once the Cessna was locked down, he'd gestured her into the jeep stored in the hanger, throwing their luggage in the back of it as they continued the conversation.

"So why were you flying an R-19 over Kuwait?"

He got in the jeep and adjusted his seat belt. "Can't tell you that, Carter. It's classified."

"Oh, c'mon, sir, I have level seven security clearance and you've told me over a dozen things you technically shouldn't have already today. "

He'd turned and smiled then and her stomach suddenly did a 180. She'd never seen him quite so relaxed or so causal before and it was doing strange things to her breathing. She swallowed, mesmerized, as the smile turned into what looked like a highly amused grin.

"Those were different. Missions over; accomplished; history. This one still isn't finished, far as I know." He turned away and backed the jeep out of the hanger, then got out and relocked the building.

When he got back in, heading the jeep onto the road, she tried again. "You **can** tell me and you know it, sir, or otherwise you wouldn't be talking at all. You can't just stop in the middle of a story and--"

That was when things began to get… unusual.

He suddenly interrupted her. "Carter?"

"Yes, sir?' His change in tone was startling.

"Do you think you could lay off the 'Colonel and sir' stuff for a while? We are on leave. I wasn't planning on issuing orders all week long. In case you've forgotten, the name's Jack."

She froze, trying to think of an answer. She glanced at his profile looking for something, what she didn't know, but he kept his eyes on the road, his expression carefully closed.

She swallowed and blurted out an answer. "I don't think I can do that, sir."

"Why not? It's hardly against the regs. Kawalsky used to call me Jack off duty all the time." His tone was mild and he sounded honestly confused by her answer.

She coughed, panicked, and stared at his hands on the wheel and then took her eyes away. His hands were definitely not good material to stare at when trying to come up with a rational answer to what was actually a reasonable question from his point of view. The fact was that he had really great hands. She blurted out the first possible sort of safe thing that came to her. "I think I'm already comfortable enough, sir. "

He looked surprised and then suddenly turned the jeep into a turn-off on the side of the road. He put the jeep into park and turned to look at her. "Glad to hear it."

"Hear what?" This was so not good for her sanity. He was grinning at her, his eyes sparkling with enjoyment.

"Glad to hear I'm not the only one who's comfortable."

"Oh." Oh, hell.

Her expression must have indicated some of her nervousness, because he was suddenly unreadable again.

"Yeah. You know, it's perfectly normal to be uhh.. comfortable, maybe even distracted."

"It is?" She had absolutely no idea where he was going with this conversation; she usually never did know where he was going with something, but wherever this was going, it was just as impenetrable as his usual flights. She swallowed, waiting.

"Of course it is."

"I see." Hell, she didn't see anything. She was completely confused. "Perfectly normal."

"Yeah. Look, it's not surprising that we're … uhh… comfortable and maybe distracted. The work we do means we don't get out much, and it does require a lot of trust… uhh…close trust. It's perfectly normal that we might get distracted. We're both single adults after all. I mean, even though you're like Kawalsky, you're not … uhh… Kawalsky."

"You think I'm like Kawalsky??" The fact that she was pretty sure he'd clearly lost his mind must have come through in her expression, because he grimaced and turned away for a minute.

When he turned back, his expression was as serious as she'd ever seen it. "Sam, you're my second-in-command. So was Kawalsky. I trusted him with my life so many times I can't remember them anymore and he was a very close friend. Yes, I think of you like I think of him. But you're also, and I'm just uhh… stating facts right now… a stunningly beautiful brilliant woman. I'd have to be blind not to at least notice." He swallowed and hurried on, not letting her break in.

"I'm just saying that I think circumstances have put us together a lot, and that that could lead to some confusion if we let it. The most adult, and easiest way to get past the …comfortable part is to just be comfortable and admit what's there. So yes. I think you're an incredibly beautiful woman that I'm attracted to, and if the situation were different…but it's not. You have, god help me, I think the bluest eyes I've ever seen, and your smile knocks me on my ass with regularity. But that's not the point. The point is I'm not asking for anything, and I'm definitely not offering anything. I just think that if we don't talk about this and get it straightened out, things will eventually become uncomfortable. And if this situation is purely one-sided, then let me apologize and assure you that I am very definitely working on thinking of you as a female Kawalsky, will approve any transfer you request, and if you want to file a complaint, I'll support it. "

"Ah." To say that she was stunned would have been an understatement.

"Ah? That's it?"

"It's a lot to take in, sir."

He looked totally exasperated. He had a point, but …she had absolutely no idea what to say. The truth of the matter was that while a part of her wanted to say "Thank God", the other much larger part wanted to stay focused on the implications of the idea that he thought she was "an incredibly beautiful woman that he was attracted to" and that he'd actually come out and told her so. She sighed. And then, of course, he'd basically taken it all back.

"Damn it, Carter, can we stuff the 'sirs'?"

"Yes, si—uhh… yeah." She regrouped, thinking fast. "Female Kawalsky" be damned. He wanted to talk about just being friends, she'd talk about his version of "friends". "OK, so I think I have it."

"Have **what**?" Sam noted that his voice was as strained as she'd ever heard it. Good. At least she wasn't the only one totally ..uh… unnerved by the possibilities.

"What you're suggesting is that the way to address this mutual interest," she paused and noted that he relaxed some when she used the word mutual, "is to admit it's there but recognize that the only avenue through which to acknowledge it is as friends?"

"Yeah, I wouldn't put it quite that way, but yeah."

"I think I can handle that."

"Good. I'm glad that's solved then." Sam thought he looked exactly like he did when he'd just taken out a squad of really bad bad guys and the Gate was in sight.

"Sure." She watched with some interest as he started up the jeep again, noticing that his hands were shaking slightly. Not surprising. She'd had to sit on hers ten minutes ago. But he wasn't going to get away with this; not if she had anything to say about it. He couldn't just.. stun.. her, then act like they'd just had a completely normal, every day conversation.

She grinned. Payback was a bitch sometimes. She might was well give him some of his own medicine. "So part of this friend thing you're suggesting is to admit to the reasons why there might be something more there and just talk about it casually as friends?"

"Yeah. I guess."

"So you think I'm a beautiful woman?"

"Carter, have you looked in the mirror lately?"

"Umm… guess not, sir. And you're just mentioning this as a friend, of course."

"Yeah. Well, might as well get it out in the open so we can get it over with."

"Ah. I think I've got it."

"Good. Now about the 'sir' stuff…"

She interrupted. "So in the interests of friendship and getting things out, just so you know, maybe I should mention that you have really amazing hands."

"I -- what did you say?"

She grinned. His voice had actually cracked. This was great. "Great hands. Great biceps as well. And your eyes remind me of the color of chocolate a lot of the time when you're concentrating on something. Of course, I'm not the only one. It's a standard topic of conversation in the woman's locker room -- how much everyone seems to like … chocolate."

The silence was priceless. She was going to remember this moment for a long time to come. She couldn't help it; the grin turned into a full-blown smile.

He recovered, snorting. "Yeah, right. You can stop with the sarcasm, Carter."

"Sorry. Can't do that. And while we're on the topic, did I mention that I like really tall men? And honestly, Jack, you are superbly fit. It's another standard topic in the locker room. That, and how distinguished you look with silver streaks. I do my best to stay out of it, of course, but it's hard not to hear."

He finally reacted. "Oh for -- I deserved that, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did."

He smiled and she finally started to relax again. "Funny. OK, truce. I won't mention that you're stunningly beautiful and that I'm trying to think of you like Kawalsky and you can call me 'sir' for the rest of the trip."

"Works for me, sir."

"Carter, you are positively evil."

"I learned from the best, sir."

"Carter?"

"Yeah?"

He was serious again. "Is this going to work? Because otherwise I think we're headed for the week from hell."

She thought about it. Joking aside, he was right. They did have to come to some sort of agreement. "Is this why you asked me to come with you fishing? To get this 'situation' between us straightened out?"

He shrugged. "Something was going to give, Sam, sooner or later. I figured it was better that we had this conversation while we weren't …uhh…distracted by some snake in a gold skirt trying to kill us or blow up the world or something. But I also honestly do think you'll like fishing. And I hope you'll love Minnesota as much as I do."

"Then I think we'll be OK."

"Good to hear it."

"Oh yeah, you betcha." She hadn't been able to stop the shiver of disappointment that she felt, however, no matter how irrational it was. Of course this was for the best.


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

Sam stared at the sunrise, remembering. If that part of the evening had been surreal, the rest had been just as strange. She remembered settling into a relaxed quiet after their conversation as they drove on into the darkness. It was nearly 8 p.m. and she'd been exhausted from having worked into early morning the day before, grabbing only a couple hours of sleep. Then the Colonel had shown up in her lab and then there she was in Minnesota on a road to nowhere in pitch-black wilderness.

At first, she couldn't do anything except keep her eyes on the road and the forest that surrounded it, thinking about what they'd discussed. This was a wild place; she'd been in many in her years in Colorado, but at least there you could see the distance and what might be approaching. Here, the trees made for an impenetrable barrier and the groundcover was equally dense. She kept quiet and concentrated on the road as they drove into the night.

The Colonel finally broke the quiet. "So, walleye sound good?"

She was tired enough that she didn't quite grasp what he was asking. "Sorry, sir. What did you say?"

He cleared his throat and clarified. " I was asking about your choice of fish. And possible food preferences beyond blue jello, MREs, and whatever glop they're serving in the mess on a given day."

"Oh. Sorry. Anything's fine, really."

Her answer clearly wasn't good enough, because he shifted his body and turned to try to see her face in the darkness. "Carter? Did you sleep at all last night? Because you sound exhausted."

"Thanks, I think." She could just make out his grin in the darkness as he turned back to watch the road.

"And that means no. So, get some sleep. We're an hour away from groceries and another thirty minutes to the cabin. It's too dark to see anything anyway. I'll wake you when we're there."

She wanted to protest, but he was right; she was exhausted. "I—alright. Sorry to be such bad company."

"No problem. Rest."

And she had tried to rest, but the window just wasn't working as a comfortable location.

He must have noticed her fidgeting, because he broke the silence that had settled once again. "Oh for crying out loud. C'mere."

"What?"

He shrugged, gesturing her over. "Shoulder, Carter. I have one that's not currently in use. It looks like you could use it."

She blinked, considering the implications of borrowing his shoulder while she was still trying to get over their last conversation. "I don't think that's such a good idea."

"Why not?"

His abrupt response sounded irritated and at the same time resigned. It reminded her a lot of some of her colleagues who had become accustomed to her questioning a hypothesis after a set of experiments to test it had been proposed, which was a really strange thought because as far as she could tell the Colonel never thought along scientific lines. She had no idea what to say; but in the end that didn't matter because he broke in before she could respond.

"Carter, what're friends **for** if not to use 'em as a couch when necessary? Just relax and sleep."

And before she'd had a chance to really think about it, he'd pulled her over to him, and settled her in on his shoulder, and that had literally seemed to settle it all. The weird part was that she had relaxed, suddenly, and slept deeply.

But things were never that easy where the Colonel was concerned. Life just didn't work that way when he was in the mix; things just happened to him; happened to them. So it was extremely predictable that she wasn't going to be able to sleep through the trip, and also predictable that she'd been lulled into a sort of security and had consequently been groggy and unprepared for what came next.

The first thing she heard was his whisper. "Stay down."

"What?" She tried to focus, still waking.

He tried again, a little more loudly, moving his hand over her arm and back to keep her below the windows. "Carter, stay down."

She tried to get up to see what was going on but this time he forced her down. "Damn it, Major, wake up and stay down."

"Yes, sir." She stayed low. She'd heard that tone too many times not to be instantly awake and aware of some sort of danger.

"You with me?"

"Yes, sir."

He seemed relieved. "Good. Here's the situation. We're parked on the side of the road about two hundred yards from the grocery store. There's nothing else in the area; no other buildings, no cars, and the road's been empty for the last thirty miles. It looks like Harry's being robbed and that it's going down now. There must be two of them and they're probably armed or Harry would have taken them out. He's ex-military, special forces. I'm going to take the jeep in on the left of the store, where visibility is bad from inside. You should be able to get out and around the back without being seen. There's a back entrance about 25 feet from the corner and Harry usually leaves it open. Did you bring a gun?"

"In my bag."

"Hold on. I'll get it." He got out of the jeep and returned with two automatics. "Ready?"

"How do you know there's a problem?"

"Sign's flashing on and off. Harry always claimed it was his SOS for the cops."

She checked her gun and then nodded. "Ready, sir."

"OK, here we go. Watch your back."

She stayed low as the Colonel took the jeep into the parking lot at the front of the store, and then crawled out behind him as he headed into the front entrance while he was making enough of a scene to distract anyone who might be looking from her movements. She headed around the building and then in through the open back door, looking for the perps. And saw them nearly immediately. One had a gun pulled on the Colonel and another man who must be Harry. The other was about twenty-five feet back, with her back to him, a shotgun pointed at all of them.

She took the shotgun out with a few well-placed blows. "Clear."

"Thanks, Carter." She watched, smiling, as the Colonel almost casually disarmed the other man, and left him screaming in pain on the floor.

"You better call Frank, Harry. You have any rope?"

A tall, burley man with a shock of red hair streaked with grey replied. "Thanks, Jack. And yeah, here." He tossed the Colonel some rope and then made a call to the local police. That done, he turned back to them, trying not to stare at her too obviously. "Nice to see you back in this neck of the woods, Jack. I appreciate the help."

The Colonel finished tying up the second man and then stood up. "Not a problem. The Major and I were in the neighborhood anyway. Carter, is the other one out cold?"

"Yes, sir."

"Nice. Maybe I should shut this one up, too." With that, they both looked back down at the floor, where the man the Colonel had disarmed was still rolling around, groaning.

"I think you've hurt him enough."

"Positive?"

"Yes, sir." She raised her eyes and then shook her head clearing it. He really did have a strange sense of humor. She grinned.

He grinned back at her, and then gave in. "Oh, all right then. Have it your way, Carter."

"Jack?" Harry broke in, staring at her, with a bemused expression on his face.

"Oh, sorry. Carter, this is Harry Yakovitch, the proprietor of this fine establishment. Harry, Major Samantha Carter, my 2IC."

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am."

"Hi, Harry. Call me Sam."

"Uhh… yes, ma'am. Sorry, I mean, Sam. Just how did you take the other one out? I didn't hear a thing and I've had some experience at this."

She shrugged, embarrassed. It wasn't like she could mention that it just wasn't healthy to let a Goa'uld or a Jaffa know you were behind them.

The Colonel broke in. "Harry, she doesn't have to explain anything. And as long as we're waiting for Frank, because I expect he'll want statements, do you mind if I do some shopping? I've brought Carter up for the week to do some fishing and we just flew in from Colorado."

"Sure, Jack." The Colonel started to hand his automatic to Harry, but he waved it away and pulled out a shotgun from under the counter. "I've got it. They just surprised me, that's all. Haven't had trouble around here in over 10 years. I'm getting sloppy." Harry turned to her again, staring. "I appreciate the help, ma'am."

The Colonel answered for her. "Harry, just forget about it. Carter, why don't you hang around with Harry and help him watch these bozos." He grimaced. " Somehow, I don't think you're going to be much help in the food selection department."

She wanted to argue, but didn't. "Sure, sir." Both she and Harry watched his back as he disappeared down the aisle.

Harry looked at her with a speculative expression in his eyes. "So you work with Jack."

She kept her expression noncommittal. "Yes. For just over three years now."

"Yeah. Doing… deep space telemetry."

"That's right."

Harry looked skeptical. "Sure. Can you tell me what that is? Jack won't talk about it."

She told him. In detail. She watched as Harry's expression turned from skepticism, to awe to what was almost terror. Figuring she'd done enough to stop Harry from pestering the Colonel about his work for the next decade, she finally stopped, giving the man a break.

"Uhhh… thanks for the information. So...you're a scientist."

"Yes. Theoretical astrophysicist."

"Well, I think I got that. But why Jack?"

Sam grinned. Harry was nothing if not persistent. "The Colonel has an interest in astronomy."

"Uhuh. Sure."

The Colonel returned at that moment with a cart full of food and began placing it on the counter so Harry could ring it up. He took one look at Harry's expression and started in.

"Carter, quit terrifying the local population or I swear I'll never let you out from under the Mountain again."

She bristled. She'd only done it as a favor to him, after all. "I did not…uhh." She stopped; actually she had, deliberately. She settled for a half-truth. "He asked."

"About deep space telemetry?"

"Yes."

The Colonel turned to his friend. "Then you deserve what you got, Harry. I told you you're too suspicious for your own good."

She watched as Harry shrugged. She realized she and Harry had something in common -- they were both currently highly annoyed with the Colonel. It was a pretty common feeling for her. She wondered, fleetingly, if he had that impact on everyone he knew. She watched Harry's expression carefully. Yep, it was universal. It somehow made her feel better.

Evidently, Harry had the same thought, because he ignored the Colonel and turned back to her, this time smiling. "Sam, why don't you come by for dinner on Tuesday? My wife, Anne, and I have a bar on Spooner, the big lake Jack's pond's connected to, and we're closed then. I'd like to thank you and I know Anne would like to meet you. Besides, by then you'll probably need a break, although if you really have to you can bring him along anyway."

"Hey."

She broke into the Colonel's complaints. "Thanks, Harry. I'd like that."

"Good."

She watched, grinning, as Harry rang up the groceries, ignoring his friend, and the Colonel finally subsided. She moved away from the counter, keeping an eye on the prisoners while Harry and the Colonel began to exchange local gossip. They were just finishing up when the Sheriff finally arrived.

"Sorry for the delay, Harry. I had some problems out by the Madson's."

"Frank."

The Sheriff acknowledged the Colonel, pushing his hat away from his eyes as he came in. Sam noted that the man was in his mid thirties, and seemed fit. He also seemed to know the Colonel fairly well. She watched as they reconnected, shaking hands, and smiling at each other.

"Jack, good to see you again." Frank gestured down to the floor at their prisoners. "I heard you gave Harry a hand."

The Colonel shrugged. "Yeah. Well. Just doing the neighborly thing and all. " His tone changed, and he looked directly at his friend, getting to the point. "What's going on, Frank? These two and then trouble on the main lake… not exactly business as usual."

Frank bent over one of the two men Sam had covered with her automatic, staring at her curiously for a moment before getting back to the problem at hand. "Crystal meth." He shook down the one that was still conscious and pulled out a valve. "Like this. We've been seeing a lot of junkies popping out of the woodwork lately."

He looked briefly at the other man, who was just starting to come around. "Damn it, Jack. Did you have to be quite so heavy-handed? I'm probably going to have some damned lawyer shouting brutality at this rate."

"Hey, that wasn't me. Carter –"

Sam broke in. "I'm afraid I'm responsible for his condition."

Frank looked up at her, trying, but not succeeding in sounding somewhat astonished. "Ma'am?"

"Uhh…yes. Sorry."

Frank grinned. "Nice job."

The Colonel interrupted. "Oh, for --. Never mind." He looked ready to complain again and then clearly decided to drop the topic and get back to the question at hand. "Where's the source?"

Frank stood up and shrugged. "That's the problem, all right. We just don't know. There's too much territory out here to have a handle on where the lab might be. But we keep looking. And if we keep picking up the riff raff like this often enough, one of them's eventually going to break. Thanks for your help, Jack."

The Colonel looked at her. "Major?"

She shrugged. "I'm not a chemist, sir, but from what I've read methamphetamine hydrochloride is easily produced using ephedrine. Most of the production methods involve hydrogenation of the hydroxyl group on the ephedrine or the pseudoephedrine molecule, which is another option for initial production. The most common method of hydrogenation uses red phosphorus and iodine to form hydroiodic acid. The—"

"Carter." The Colonel sounded positively horrified at her response, not to mention seriously annoyed.

"Sorry, sir." She grinned to herself, amused by his completely justified exasperation. The fact of the matter was that, although she did her best to rise above her baser self, it was extremely amusing to push his buttons (one said button being detailed scientific explanations), when they weren't in any sort of danger. It just never failed to annoy him. And, of course, seeing that she was pretty sure that he knew she was doing it, and he ended up exasperated anyway, made the whole business just so much more fun.

Coughing to hide her grin, she shook herself mentally and apologized silently to her CO, even if he didn't know it, and got back to the topic at hand. "The point is that it's easy enough to manufacture crystal meth from simple over the counter items like cough medicine, salt, drain cleaner, iodine and even cat litter. But the compounds are extremely volatile and very dangerous to process while in the making. In addition, there's a lot of toxic waste created in the manufacture."

"And so, the lab is possibly where?"

She thought about it. "They'd need reasonably close access to a road and a constant water source."

"Which describes nearly 99 of the cabins in the state." The sarcasm in the Colonel's voice was unmistakable.

She grimaced, acknowledging his justified irritation and silently apologizing for her earlier aberrations. "It wouldn't have to be a cabin. In fact, I'd bet it's not. They've more likely brought in a mobile home, so as not to be in contact with the local population. They'd need a portable generator for power in that case, rather than use the typical propane tanks usually available at a settled site like a cabin; and although the water source could be a lake, it's more likely that it's a feeder stream because someone would have noticed the toxic effect in lake water by now. They're probably seeping the waste into groundwater and using a stream for some byproduct elimination. My guess is that they'd want to be deep in the forest as well and stay blocked from view by the trees." She turned to the Sheriff. "So, my guess is that you're looking for a mobile home with a portable generator set deep in the forest but with access to a main road set next to a tributary. There's probably a lot of dead growth around the location and there might be discoloration of the water coming into a lake from the stream."

Frank looked up at her, startled. "Yeah, that's what the experts down in Minneapolis told me although they didn't think of the stream. I've been searching on the lakes themselves. Jack?"

The Colonel rubbed his face briefly, and then grinned at her, clearly deciding to overlook her idiosyncrasies and probably, from the smile he sent her, hoping she'd overlook his. She grinned back. The latter was always easy.

"Carter, Sheriff FrankVanderMoor. Frank, Major Doctor Samantha Carter."

Sam was pretty sure she smiled at the Sheriff at the appropriate moment, her mind elsewhere, trying to understand why it felt so odd to be introduced by the Colonel to people he knew. And then realized the distinction. Once, no, now twice, the Colonel had formally introduced her to his friends, not just explaining her rank to someone on-world or off-world, not just making a declarative statement, but using all of the proper protocol for this kind of situation. It was different; and it was odd. And she knew, instinctively, that if it had been Daniel or Teal'c , he never have taken the time or the trouble.

She looked back at the Colonel and saw him smile again, and then shrug.

Yeah, OK, so maybe there were a few things that might be different on this trip.

"Pleasure to meet you, ma'am." Frank looked at her curiously, obviously noting her distraction but too polite to say anything, and then knelt down again to shake down the other junkie, who was now awake. "You really think that the lab is most likely located close to a stream?"

"I'm not sure, but it seems probable."

"Yeah, well, thanks." He stood up again and looked at the Colonel. "Jack, if you and your Major plan to be around for a while, maybe you could consider --"

The Colonel interrupted him. "I'll think about it. Frank, do you need anything more from us right now? Because the Major may not be, but I'm in need of some beauty sleep."

"I – uhh, yeah, sure, Jack. George was right behind me in the squad car. He'll take these two down to Memorial and Harry and I can finish up here."

"Good. Ready, Carter?"

"Yes, sir. Good night, gentlemen." She grabbed some of the bagged groceries and headed out the door with the Colonel. In the background, she heard Harry mutter, "Deep space telemetry, my ass."

She shrugged, more important things on her mind as she got in the jeep. "Beauty sleep?"

The Colonel grinned at her as he started up the jeep. "Wouldn't want to disappoint you in the distinguished department, Major."

She grinned back, mimicking one of his favorite phrases. "Ah. Well, that's all right then."

Sam smiled yet again, remembering, as she watched the early morning light shimmer through the trees, the roses and yellows of the sunrise reflected on the leaves, beckoning her towards a new day. All told, the evening had been interesting, to say the least. She'd met three of the Colonel's old friends, got to fly his Cessna, helped stop a robbery, and they'd straightened out a lot of underlying questions about their relationship that could have created awkward situations somewhere down the road if they hadn't talked it out now. The Colonel had been clear about his feelings -- those of being attracted to her and that he viewed her as off limits. She grinned, thinking. And clear that he'd decided her role in this little expedition was one of "fishing buddy, friend and colleague". Truth be told, his view of the situation matched her own. He was a very attractive man, but definitely dangerous to her career and often to her sanity. She could settle pretty comfortably into the roles of "friend and colleague", rather than subordinate, for the next week, although she had her doubts about the "fishing buddy" part. And now that they both knew that any attraction there was between them wasn't going anywhere by mutual agreement, they could relax and enjoy the connection. Clearly, the week ahead promised to be interesting.


	6. Chapter 6

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

Jack woke up with a vague feeling that he hadn't followed through in some way that he should have. And then he remembered the day before. He rubbed his eyes, trying to wake up, then flopped over, turned his head back into the pillow, and wondered exactly where his brain seemed to be vacationing these days and if there was any way to recall it to active duty. Thinking about it, the answer was clear --his brain was on permanent hiatus, and probably had decided to retire without consulting him years ago. His only hope was that it was somewhere out there enjoying the sun, a scene, had climbed a few mountains on the way, and that at least one part of him was enjoying itself these days. That would be a first.

He groaned and turned over again, thinking about the night before. Way to go, O'Neill. Really well done. He'd brought Carter out here to "get to know how her mind worked", for heaven's sake, and then just blurted out some sort of drivel the minute she indicated that she liked the idea of spending any time with him. He clearly had not only lost his mind, but it was obvious that his sanity was seriously considering following the precedent.

He turned back over again and put the pillow back over his face yet again. Finally deciding that suffocation was an act of cowardice, not that he wasn't tempted, he sat up and reviewed the latest insanity that he'd managed to start. Of course he started it. He always did. He was always good at the beginning stuff; it was the follow through that got dicey when things got personal. He turned the thought aside and tried to remember exactly what Sam's reactions were in relation to his latest flight off the edge of reason.

In retrospect, maybe it wasn't that bad. OK, so maybe he'd started this insane idea of inviting her to the cabin and a fishing trip because he had thought that they needed to talk and straighten some things out between them, and but that possible discussion of straightening anything out, if there was anything, had been planned for the end of the trip in his planning strategy (if ever), not the beginning. And yeah, somehow he'd jumped the gun when she smiled at him. But she'd seemed to take his superficial meanderings all in stride, perhaps even found them amusing, which was in reality a lowering thought.

He sighed. In the end, he was clearly lucky that she hadn't taken him up on a reassignment offer, because if any of this ever got out, he was toast, and personally, he thought he was and should be labeled burnt toast at best. He grimaced, grabbed a towel from his cabinet, and started the shower, trying to get the cobwebs out of his brain-- provided he could find the damned thing or it finally decided to visit just to annoy him further.

He found her out on the deck, watching the sunrise over his pond. "Carter."

Her grin was infectious. "Morning, sir. It's beautiful here. Thanks for inviting me. "

"Glad you like it." He looked at her carefully, trying to reconcile his thoughts in the early morning and her clear enjoyment of the day. "Thanks for making coffee."

"Sure."

He paused awkwardly and then settled for an easy and simple question. "How long have you been up?"

She looked surprised. "I don't really know. Maybe an hour. It's so peaceful here, time doesn't seem to matter."

He walked over to where she was sitting and took the other chair. "Yeah. Uh, look, Sam, about last night…" He figured it was better start simple and first to apologize up front for getting her involved in taking down some junkies. It was hardly how he'd wanted to start the week. The rest he could get to later.

She grinned. "That was fun, wasn't it?'

"You enjoyed taking out a couple of meth heads?"

"Sure. Didn't you? Makes for a nice change from Goa'uld."

"Uhh… yeah, sure." Actually he had, but for some reason he hadn't expected her to as well. Obviously, he'd been wrong.

She continued. "And I liked your friends. They seem pretty down to earth."

He grinned, and took a sip of his coffee. "Well, that's Minnesota for you, if you want to call getting robbed and busting perps 'down to earth'. But yeah, they're ok. I've known Harry for over twenty years, and Frank for about ten, since he became sheriff."

"How did you meet?"

He took another sip of coffee, remembering. "I bought the cabin back in 82, using some of the first bonus money I got as a down payment." He shrugged, trying to decide what to tell her. It was a long time ago, after all. "At the time, I thought it might be a good investment, and I was single. I grew up 100 miles south of here, so I knew the area."

He looked across at her, and when she still seemed interested, continued some of the story. "Anyway, I met Harry in the bar he and his wife Anne now own on Spooner. He was still in the Army, but he'd lived around here all his life, and seeing as we were both military, we started up a conversation. When he found out I was looking for a place, he let me know about the cabin and the pond and I bought them both the next month. Harry retired in 95 and took over his father's store and he and Anne bought the bar with the money they'd saved. I've kept in touch whenever I'm here." He paused and left the rest of the story live in the past where it belonged. "As for Frank, well, military, cops, wilderness…bound to be a connection eventually. It's a small community. He and Harry are close, and I've helped Frank out with some cases on occasion when I'm here."

She smiled. "So that's why he was hoping you'd be willing to look into the lab location with him. Sounds like you've been having a lot of busman's holidays, sir. And that must have been tough with … well…it's just that it's so beautiful here it must have been hard to tear yourself away from just…the deck." She gestured at the pond and the openness beyond.

Jack stared at her, somewhat confused and then realized what she was referring to -- a discreet reference to his past. He answered her before he even knew he was doing so. "I didn't spend much time here before I retired. For the most part, I left the cabin empty for most of the late 80s and the early 90s. Harry kept an eye on it for me. I probably should have sold the place, but somehow I couldn't. In fact, I think Sara was only here once, and Charlie never saw the place."

She obviously saw something in his expression, because she became suddenly serious. "I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean to…"

He shrugged. "It's alright, Carter. It's a pretty common story with military marriages. Never enough time to do what you might." He picked at something in his coffee, thinking. "Anyway, after I retired, I spent a lot of time up here and Frank kept involving me in his cases, claiming self interest, although I think he thought I needed something to do. Anyway …" He stopped, suddenly realizing that he was talking without thinking again. Carter had hardly come up here to hear about his past.

But she didn't seem to mind, although she did look away and towards the pond. "Thank you for explaining, sir. They're clearly good friends."

Jack decided that as a host, he was batting zero on a one to ten scale, even if the silence that had settled was more comfortable than most. Sam deserved better than his verbal meanderings about his personal history.

He cleared his throat and let the past go. "So, Carter, you up for a swim?"

She grinned, following his lead. "Sure, sir." The sarcasm in her voice was unmistakable. She clearly didn't think he meant it.

He smiled and gestured towards the pond. "I'm serious. The pond's about a half-mile across and about 30 feet deep at the middle. I usually swim it a couple of times every morning when I'm here."

"Yeah, well, last time you were out here was mid-July and --"

He interrupted her, distracted. "You remember the last time I went on leave?" His tone was incredulous, but …

She grinned. "Of course. It was the last time I had a chance to work on the reactor for a full week."

He raised his eyebrows, grimacing. Of course it would be something like that. Then he grinned, getting back to the topic at hand. "And so your point is…"

"-- is that it's fifty degrees out here, tops. A little chilly for a dip."

"Nah. The water's warmer; still maintaining summer heat. The temperature in the pond is probably nearer to sixty."

She turned and looked at him rather than the pond, searching his expression. "You're actually serious." When he just continued to grin, she shook her head and raised her eyes. "I think I'll pass, sir."

"Ah."

"What's that supposed to mean?" The annoyance in her tone was unmistakable.

He shrugged. "Nothing."

She stared at him suspiciously. "Give."

"I just never thought of you as someone who couldn't handle a few laps around the pond. But that's ok, Carter, I'm glad to see you're relaxing and starting to feel like you're on vacation."

She smiled and pulled her sweater around her more closely. " Nice try, sir, but I'm not buying. It's freezing in there."

"Of course it is. That's the fun part."

She shook her head. "You really are crazy, you know."

He waited for her to crack, seeing no reason to waste time agreeing with the obvious.

She finally sighed, acknowledging defeat. "Do you always torture your guests?"

He grinned. "Of course. It's my specialty." He got up and walked towards the house before she could change her mind. "Laps start in ten, Carter."

He could hear her mumbling as he opened the door. And then she commented, loudly, "A half-mile long, 30 foot deep body of water is **not** a pond."

He smiled and answered. "It is in Minnesota."


	7. Chapter 7

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

He beat her to the dock and into the pond. He was treading water, waiting for her to show up when she walked out of the house, encased in a large terry cloth robe he reserved for guests. He decided having a robe for guests had been a good, even a great idea, because in all of his planning of this trip he hadn't actually realized that he'd never seen Carter in anything except BDUs, her Class A uniform, or in jeans when she was off duty. The fact of the matter was that in his prior view of the world "Carter" and "bathing suit" were mutually exclusive terms. When she took off the robe, he decided he should have kept it that way, and thanked whatever was out there that he'd gotten to the pond first. He looked away. If it weren't getting to be cliché, he'd think it again: she was stunningly beautiful, and he was in very serious trouble. Luckily, he hated clichés…uhh.. maybe he was going to have to rethink that. And then again, maybe not.

He turned back and issued a challenge, striking out for the other side of the lake. The water was warmer than the air; he let the feeling of weightlessness and warmth settle over him, the adrenaline surging through his body as he established a rhythm. He looked to his side and saw that Carter was pacing him, her lithe body gliding easily through the water. He cleared his mind and let sensations overtake him. As a result, he wasn't prepared when she suddenly grabbed his arm, stopping his stroke. Startled, he stopped and pulled her to him, his legs somehow entangling with hers as he tried to regain equilibrium. The warmth of her body was overwhelming; he put the thought aside and concentrated on keeping them both afloat.

"Carter?" He couldn't keep the worry out of his voice.

She held onto his arms, staring at him with a surprised expression. Then she looked away, and cleared her throat. "I'm all right. I'm sorry. It's just that I wanted you to see --". She gestured up to the sky, where a pair of red tail hawks were circling, soaring into the air current and then diving lower to the pond. "They're beautiful."

He released her, still slightly shaken, and watched the hawks as they glided through the morning sky. "Yeah, they are."

"Sir, I --"

"Carter, it's alright. You just surprised me." He let his breathing slow, treading water. "I'm glad they're still here. I think they've set up a nest nearby." He watched as they glided off over the trees, in ever widening circles.

"They must be fishing."

He grinned. "No fish in the pond. They're probably just out enjoying the day and the company."

She smiled at him, amused. "Ah. Well, in that case, they clearly have some additional plans. Last one back makes breakfast." And with that, she took off towards the water's edge, the awkwardness of a moment ago clearly forgotten.

He stayed where he was for a moment, thinking, and then let it go. The only thing he could say for sure was that Carter and bathing suits were definitely a dangerous combination and that he hadn't felt this alive in years. The hell with the rest.

Given his current track record when dealing with Sam and water, he let her beat him to the dock and started issuing orders the minute he arrived. It was safer that way. "Carter, get dressed."

She looked at him strangely, like he'd lost his mind. OK, maybe he had; he didn't normally issue orders about her dress code, but this was different. He'd already embarrassed himself twice this morning and given the current situation, he wasn't going to be able to get out of the water without embarrassing himself, and her, yet again if she didn't and it was damned cold now that he wasn't moving.

"I'm fine, sir. It feels great out here."

"Damn it, Sam, that's not the point. Just do it, please."

"I'm fine." She was clearly annoyed.

"And I'm your CO, not a monk. Sam…" He let his voice drift off, exasperated, hoping she'd get the point and put him out of his misery.

"Oh. Oh. Sorry." But he could tell from her smile as she turned away that she wasn't sorry at all. She also took her own sweet time getting dressed, and when she bent over to retrieve the robe, his breath caught in this throat.

And then he realized she was doing it deliberately. He was still clearly paying for their conversation the night before. No question about it, he'd created a monster. Carter was evil, and she was hell-bent on teasing him as a payback.

He grinned. If it was war she wanted, he was more than willing to oblige-- in a purely friendly sort of way, of course. It wasn't exactly professional, but they were on vacation after all and it was all in fun. They'd gotten any confusion out of the way the day before, so there was really no reason not to enjoy her company, and if that included a few … uhhh… personal skirmishes, well, he could handle it. Yep, you betcha.


	8. Chapter 8

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

He fed her homemade blueberry pancakes, Minnesota maple syrup, bacon and more coffee for breakfast, figuring that food had always lulled him into a false sense of security, so it should work on Carter as well.

It did. She was clearly lulled. Grinning to himself, he listened with half an ear as she enthused about the beauty of the area while he cleaned up the dishes, remembering, and thinking about how different this morning was from his other stays at the cabin.

Sara had hated it here, and found excuses not to come with him after the first time she'd been there. It had surprised him at the time. In retrospect, he should have seen it coming. When they'd first met, and for the first five years after they'd been together, he'd thought of Sara as someone who loved the outdoors. She'd grown up on a ranch outside of Durango, after all, and they'd spent most of the time getting to know each other hiking in the Rockies while he was at the Academy and she was getting her civil engineering degree at Boulder. After she'd landed a position as city planner in Aurora, he'd realized his mistake. From then on, any vacations they had taken together, which admittedly weren't many, had been spent visiting other communities on the verge of population explosion and unplanned growth. They'd bored him to death, and so he'd hoped the cabin might be a compromise. He'd been wrong. And he'd also realized that where she might tolerate the Rockies, and hiking in the mountains, Minnesota's dense forests and lakes were a shabby second to the high alpine peaks from her perspective. In the end, he'd finally realized that Sara might know the wilderness, but she'd never loved it. She'd literally left the ranch and never went back. Her real love had been developing communities and building cities out of rock.

He'd never understood the point. He didn't think he ever would. But he'd been gone for most of their marriage, and their differences hadn't seem to matter until Charlie died.

The silence told him that he'd missed something again and Carter was waiting for an answer. "Come again?"

"Are you all right, sir?"

"I – yeah, sure."

Carter looked away, clearly not convinced. She cleared her throat. "The pancakes were terrific. I didn't know you could cook." She left a half-question in her voice.

He smiled, distracted. "Had these down by the time I was ten. It's an old O'Neill recipe."

She smiled. "And I want to thank you again for asking me. The scenery's spectacular."

"Yeah, well. It's hardly the Weminuche."

He swore at himself when she tilted her head, clearly confused by his answer. "Sorry. The Weminuche is a Wilderness in southern Colorado, near Durango. I just meant that Minnesota isn't doesn't exactly have the dramatic scenery of high alpine lakes and peaks that Colorado does."

Now she was looking at him like he'd lost his mind. "Of course not. But that's hardly the point, is it? Each area has its own unique beauty. And this is real wilderness; it's wild open space for hundreds of miles. There aren't many places left even in Colorado these days that can claim that kind of isolation. I can see why you love it here."

He turned suddenly and stared at her, surprised. Carter had grown up on Air Force bases; he had hardly expected her, of anyone he knew, to understand why Minnesota defined the wilderness and was home to him. And then he caught her eyes and he was lost in what he saw there.

He turned back to the sink and shook his head, correcting himself. He'd just been confused for a moment by what he thought he saw in her expression. He finished cleaning up the dishes, silently, and then changed the subject, finally turning back to her again.

"So, what would you like to do this morning? There's fishing and then, of course, there's also fishing, and if that gets old, we could always try fishing. I have a boat docked on Spooner. I thought we could--." He stopped, staring at her curiously. Her sheepish expression, if it was possible for Carter to have a sheepish expression, told him something was up.

"Give."

She grinned, not at him, but at her fork, with which she was still playing, and he hadn't yet confiscated in order to put it into the depths of the soap and water awaiting it. He smiled, and waited. He understood the fiddling concept.

"Actually, I'd like to have a look at the cabin's electrical set-up. Whoever designed it did an amazing job on seamlessly combining the solar and the propane systems. And I'd like to see how it's going to be installed in the addition you're building."

He leaned back against the counter, amused. "Carter, correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can tell you've been here a total of ten hours, six of which you spent sleeping, and if I'm not mistaken, the other four you've spent eating, swimming and watching the sun rise. Exactly when did you have time to nose out the specifics of the cabin's electrical system?"

She grimaced and played with the fork prongs again. "Well, I sort of traced it down when I was making coffee."

"Ah."

"Yeah. It's pretty impressive. I'd like to get a closer look at the design." She smiled, wheedling, and he knew that he was toast, but he wasn't going to go down without a fight.

"We came up here to go fishing, not so you could play with batteries and generators."

She shrugged. "No reason not to do both. Besides, if I wasn't here, I'd be willing to bet that you'd be working on the addition you're building." She smiled again. "No reason not to take advantage of a couple of extra hands. "

She must have seen something odd in his expression, because she backed down immediately. "Umm.. sorry, sir, just a suggestion. I'll go get on some 'fishing' clothes and be right back."

She started to get up, but he stopped her. She was right, if course. If she hadn't been here, he would be working on the addition and the truth was he could use some help. And anyway, as a host, it was hardly appropriate to deprive her of her favorite toys if he had some readily available. "All right, I'll show you the schematics, and you can play to your heart's content, Carter, but this does not mean you're getting out of fishing."

She grinned back at him, and he was history. "Of course not, sir."

Round two to Carter.


	9. Chapter 9

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

Four hours later, Jack stopped work on the wiring in the addition, deciding it was time to break for the day. The sun was streaming through the windows he'd framed in the last time he was here. They were going to miss the afternoon, which had turned out to be beautiful after the fogs of the morning had cleared. The air was crisp; the sun was shining; the lake was beckoning and reds and golds of fall in Minnesota were at their best. It was definitely time to stop.

He wiped his hands on a rag, put it in his back pocket, and headed out into the living room. He pulled out some topos of the area off the top shelf next to the fireplace and opened them up on the table, mentally revising his plans for them for the afternoon. Carter was clearly intent on having a busman's holiday, and given that his own inclinations lay in that direction anyway, he saw no reason not to accommodate her. His review complete, he replaced the topos they were unlikely to use today, pulled his binoculars out of the drawer, and headed back to the workshop, where he'd last left Carter happily mired in the electrical connections between the solar batteries and propane generator.

What he found was precisely half of her. The rest was underneath the generator, muttering.

"Sam." She ignored him.

He tried again. "Sam, it's nearly--".

The next few seconds were a blur in his memory. There'd been a flash of electricity, and before he knew what had happened, they were both on the floor, she was out from underneath the generator, and his upper body was covering hers with his arms and shoulders protecting her head.

"Sorry."

"Damn it, Sam..." He stayed put, still recovering.

She leaned back and pushed up on her elbows, staring at him apologetically. "I know. I thought I could adjust the current flow more efficiently if I monitored it while the system was active. Dumb."

"Yeah, it was." He ran his hand along her hairline and then the side of her face. "Your hair's singed and your face is... greasy?"

She shrugged, staring at him, questioning. " I don't know--maybe the generator gears?"

"Yeah." He knew he should get up; he was practically on top of her, but for some reason he couldn't move. It didn't make sense. They'd been through a lot worse on a good day off-world. Of course, off-world he expected accidents, crises, whatever, on a regular basis. Here, they were as about as safe as he ever felt these days.

He shifted off of her, and then took out the rag he'd used earlier in the day from his back pocket and started wiping the grease off her face. She stared back at him, her eyes wide, but he looked away from her gaze, carefully working at the grime. Somehow, he just needed to do that; just needed to... whatever. She stayed surprisingly quiet during his ministrations and he was silent himself, damning himself for being an idiot. But the thing was that he'd already decided he wasn't going to let anything happen to her, not in his lifetime and not on his watch. The idea that anything could happen in the safest place he knew left him more shaken than he was ready to accept.

"Sir?" There was honest confusion in her voice, and he thanked whatever was out there that she couldn't read his thoughts.

He handed her the rag and pulled himself together, his tone gruff, but hell, he couldn't quite help that, and that was normal anyway.

"Carter, the next time you plan on possibly electrocuting yourself and burning down a building during this trip, I expect some advance warning. I'm on vacation." He sat up, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them, and tried for calm. The whole damned incident was just flat out embarrassing.

"Oh, for.. " Then she stopped, suddenly seeming to understand, and smiled. "Noted, sir. The next time during this trip that I plan on burning down a building I will warn you in advance."

He grinned back at her, glad that they were back in synch, and she was willing to ignore his aberration. "Thank you." Relieved, he changed the subject and got back to the point at hand. "It's nearly noon. We should call it a day on this. I'd like to get some time out on the lake."

She maneuvered next to him, her shoulder next to his and absently played with the rag he'd handed her, seemingly lost in thought. "It was pointless to try improving the plan anyway. It's too good; and the way the back-up connections have been wired between systems is especially well-done."

She paused and then looked at him inquiringly, smiling. "I'd love to talk to the designer. Who did it?"

There it was. The question that he'd successfully avoided all morning, and yet, at the same time, was slightly annoyed that she hadn't figured out.

Her eyes were twinkling and he realized there was no need to explain. Exasperated, and still slightly unnerved from the accident and his reaction, he resorted to sarcasm. "Why bother to ask when you know the answer?"

She smirked, not picking up on his mood, which was odd. Carter always picked up on his moods in the field. Maybe vacations were just an anomaly, or maybe this was all a very bad idea.

Sam shook her head, as if confirming some private thought. She shrugged and smiled. "No need to answer, sir. If you don't want to admit to anything, I un--"

He broke in. "Admit to what?"

She grinned, and started reciting from memory. "Jonathan 'Jack' O'Neill, born-"

"That's OK, Carter. I think I know when I was born. As far as I know, senility hasn't hit yet."

Undaunted, she continued. "Commissioned in 78 with a B.S. in Engineering, Airforce Academy, overall GPA 3.5 out of 4. MS in aeronautical engineering '80."

He stared at her and kept his tone calm, hoping that just the monotone strength of it would carry the day and save him from a possibly embarrassing conversation to come. "What have you been doing, breaking into the classified SGC personnel files?"

She shrugged, meeting his gaze, seeming not to notice his irritation. But then Carter was always good at ignoring him when she thought something was important. And that was a scary thought… his past should not be important enough to her for her to pay attention.

" That's about the only piece of your record that isn't classified. I found it in the Academy database when I did some guest lecturing there last summer."

Before he could say anything, she broke in again. "And c'mon, sir. After all, you are a commissioned officer, not enlisted, and everyone knows that the minimum educational degree required for the rank of Colonel is a Masters, an MBA or a law degree. Somehow, you don't seem like the type for the last two. "

"Yeah, well. So, what's your point, Carter?" He'd hoped that would be enough to stop the conversation, but when Sam was on a roll that seemed naively optimistic, even for him.

"Besides, I've seen you in action. Even your training in explosives and as a pilot can't account for the way you operate in the field."

"You're imagining things, Sam." He shifted, uncomfortable.

"I'm not. But I guess I would like to understand why you're so reticent about what you know. A lot of the suggestions you've made about how to solve some of the problems we've faced in the last three years have been really helpful. There was the time when we were off world with Catherine and your Franklin reference about electrical current; and you were able to hook up and jury-rig the power source in the alternate reality in seconds, and don't tell me that was Kawalsky because I won't buy it. And then there was when you suggested how to save Teal'c's symbiote. "ER", my tail. You knew that we'd missed that basic biochemistry states that there's a small electrical current going through all organisms, and just made up the example of ER and the paddles to point it out."

She grinned, thinking. "Have you even ever watched ER?"

"Of course I have." He raised his eyebrows in mock outrage, ignoring the first piece of her comments, focusing on the last, and tried to divert the conversation back to the casual, where it belonged.

She stopped, suddenly diverted. "Really?"

He grinned, starting to relax now that the conversation had veered away from the personal. "Really. I saw a few commercials for it during the Simpsons and decided to check it out."

She stared at him, surprised. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Wanted to make sure Frasier hasn't been pulling a lot of fast ones. To be fair, their needles look bigger than hers, not that I'd mention that to anyone but you. Wouldn't want the Doc to start to feel competitive." He grinned again. "And I gotta admit, that as Carter's go, that one's pretty scary as well."

She rolled her eyes, smiling. "Oh, for – it's not going to work, sir. You still haven't answered my question."

He took the rag from her hands, fidgeting with it himself. "If I've mentioned anything that helped, I'm glad to hear it. But all of that's pure accident, Sam. I'm not a scientist and never was. "

"Sure."

"I'm serious."

She looked out the window of the workshop, smiled, and shrugged, accepting his comment. Somehow that annoyed him even more than talking about himself so he offered a bit more as a truce of sorts.

"OK, yeah, I know explosives and how to rig them up and, yes, I've been flying for a long time, but that's it, Carter, that's all there is to know. I graduated over twenty years ago, and what I remember, which isn't much, is as out of date as it gets. I may have the calling cards, but I am not an engineer. I never was."

She looked skeptical and then grinned. " Yeah, sure you betcha, sir, anyone could set up this kind of electrical system."

"It's common sense."

She smiled a full-blown smile. "Of course it is. And of course, no one needs to mention that it's damned good; it's better than good and it's based on solar technology that's only came out in the last year."

"Sam, can we drop this?"

This time she caught his tone, and backed down immediately. "Of course, sir. Consider it dropped."

"Good." Relieved, he stood up and pulled her off the ground as well. 'So, I was thinking that.."

"It's just that –." She stopped suddenly. "Sorry. That was out of line, sir."

He sighed. He should have known that Carter, being Carter, couldn't let anything go once a question was percolating in her brain. It was an annoying characteristic when he was the focus of her attention, and yet, that same intensity was what had saved their butts so many times he knew he had to give her some slack. She was Carter, after all.

"For crying out loud, Sam, just get it over with and ask me what you want to know."

"Nothing. Really, sir. "

He stared at her, exasperated. "What?"

"I just thought—well, this is … It's just that I thought this trip was off the record. I thought you invited me up here as a friend."

"I did." He stared at her, confused by sudden change of direction in the conversation.

She stared back, her blue eyes mesmerizing him in their honesty and their questions. "I guess I just.. well.. I guess my question is do you usually refuse to talk about your background with your friends?"

He blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Uhh… actually, yes."

"Oh." She looked stunned by his admission.

He defended himself. "Ninety-five per cent of what I've done for the last twenty-five years is classified. I've gotten used to not talking."

She smiled. "I do have clearance, sir. "

"So did Kawalsky, but he never wanted to know what I studied at the Academy."

"Yes, sir." She turned away, and began to clean up the tools she had left out that were lying on the workbench.

Oh, hell. Now, he felt like an ass. "Sam, I'm sorry. Finish your question."

"It's really not important, sir."

"Damn it, Sam. I know I can be ... a bit difficult at times, but I am trying here. "

She grinned. "A **bit** difficult?"

"All right, maybe I can, upon occasion, just possibly be a serious pain in the ass, but you are not helping in the slightest. So, just…" He gestured for her to continue, and she bent her head, considering.

"Sure?"

"Yes. Just get on with it."

She crossed her arms, thinking. " I guess what I'm saying is that friends do know more about each other than '95 of my life is classified.' They usually ask, and answer, questions about themselves in order to get to know each other better. I'd kind of hoped that--well, honestly, sir, this is really not important."

She turned away and started fiddling with something on the bench. What was surprising him more than her words was that he could have sworn he'd seen her blush before she'd turned away. Sam Carter blushing for any reason was a new idea he couldn't quite wrap his head around.

And more to the point, she had a point, at least from her perspective. From his, the last time someone had wanted to 'get to know him better', he'd been twenty years old and the inquisitor had been Sara. And to be honest, he couldn't imagine having this conversation with Teal'c or Daniel. On the other hand, he couldn't imagine Teal'c or Daniel staring at him in quite the same way Sam was now that she'd turned back again. It was doing strange things to his breathing.

He broke eye contact, and tried to focus. The fact was that Sam was a brilliant, beautiful woman, emphasis on the female part. And he'd never been friends with a woman before. It was entirely possible that there were a whole new set of rules that he needed to figure out, and he was pretty sure that the first was not to mention that it seemed that being friends with a woman appeared to be … different. Carter would be sure to kick his ass. Besides which, for all he knew, maybe this was just Carter being Carter and he was extrapolating wildly. She was a scientist, after all. Maybe she really did expect him to talk science when he could.

He grimaced. The only thing he really knew for sure was that he was way in over his head and didn't have the sense to bail when the boat was sinking. But the real truth of the matter was that he doubted he could refuse Carter anything. He hadn't been able to often in the last three years. No reason today was going to be any different.

Still, he did have some sense of self-preservation left, and right now it was screaming at him to clarify what she'd said. "So, you're suggesting solar energy systems and uhh… degrees are… friends… topics."

She shrugged.

And you're suggesting we could talk about stuff like that, off the record on this trip, as … friends."

She shrugged again.

He cleared his throat, repeating himself. "So… like friends."

"Yeah, like friends."

He grinned, and let the boat sink. "I can do that."

"Uhuh, sure you can." But this time, she was smiling and she'd turned back from the bench.

He tried avoidance one last time. "You sure we can't just talk about the Broncos chances this year?"

"I told you, sir. I don't follow—"

"Yeah. You don't follow football." He sighed loudly and, he hoped, clearly regretfully.

She grinned. "It's all right, sir. I think I understand."

He leaned back against the bench in the workshop and then lifted himself onto it, looking at her, determined now that he had sunk the boat to just dive in and see if he could swim back to shore in time. "No, it's OK. I can cope, Carter. Ask me what you want to know."

"That's all right, sir, really."

"No, you started this. Now ask."

"You sure you can handle this, sir? I would want to … frighten you or anything." If anything, her expression was a full-blown grin.

He grimaced, conceding. "Cute. So, shoot. I can 'handle it'."

She jumped up on the counter next to him and they sat shoulder to shoulder. She tilted her head, thinking. "OK, let's start with something simple. How many languages do you speak?"

"Languages?"

"Yes, sir."

He stared at her suspiciously. "You're not going to mention this conversation to Daniel, are you? Given his …enthusiasm for all things intellectual, if he even has a wiff of the fact that I've studied anything ever, he'll probably expect me to start conjugating Latin verbs or some such rot in a future life."

"Completely confidential, sir."

He was still distracted. "Why that? Why are you asking about my academic background? It's such old news even I've forgotten it."

"I guess that's why."

"Because I've forgotten it?"

"I –no, sorry. Because it's part of your past and as I said you never talk about your past. Besides, it seemed like a safe topic."

"Safe?" Jack finally, suddenly made the connection about the different levels of the conversation, acknowledging and finally understanding some of the differences between them. In his experience admitting to any kind of knowledge was tantamount to giving up power. If your opponent was aware of the extent of your understanding, your options were limited accordingly. For Sam, however, talking about academic credentials was like asking the time of day. It wasn't about power; it was just data.

And truth be told, she did have a point. They were hardly opponents. There was no reason not to answer her questions.

"Yeah, OK, safe stuff. That sounds good."

"Languages?"

"But I'm not playing if you keep calling me 'sir.' " If he was going to have to talk about …safe stuff… he was at least going to get something out of the deal.

"We went over that last night."

"No, we straightened out part of the friends part last night. You're upping the ante, Carter, and if you keep calling me sir I'm likely to forget that I agreed to a new pot, and fold, clam up, or start issuing orders when things get a little…"

"… uncomfortable?"

"…friendly."

"It's not a dirty word, si--"

"Ah--," he broke in, correcting her.

She grimaced, giving in. "Jack."

"Try the whole sentence on for size, Carter. Repeat after me: 'It's not a dirty word, Jack'."

She groaned and then smiled. "It's not a dirty word, Jack."

"See? That wasn't so hard."

"Are you going to answer my question or not?"

"What question?"

She practically ground her teeth. He smiled, amused. It was definitely fun baiting her.

"How many languages do you speak?"

"Oh, that one. None."

"Not possible."

"Well, I do speak English, of course, although not the four syllable variety you're so fond of."

"Jack."

He smiled, liking the sound of his name coming from her.

"Give."

"Ah.. jeez, Carter. All right, so I fulfilled the required two years of study of a foreign language at the Academy. And before you ask, Spanish, but what I remember, which isn't much, just enables me to get by in casual situations if I have to. Satisfy your curiosity?"

"Nope. You forgot to mention that you must know some Serb and Arabic. You have to have had some immersion courses. The Air Force wouldn't have sent you on some of the missions you described yesterday without them."

He snorted, suddenly serious, remembering part of the past that he did his best to forget. "Yeah, I was immersed all right. Most of what I know of Arabic includes the basics: food, water, blood, pain; the usual polite chat you pick up when you're being tortured with regularity."

She stopped smiling, suddenly quiet and very serious. "God, I'm sorry."

He interrupted, annoyed with himself. "No, Sam, stop. You have no need to apologize. I'm the one that's sorry. You didn't deserve that; it just came out. I'm not very good at this…personal discussion stuff. "

Her hand moved from the counter to cover his, a quiet gesture of support. "That makes two of us, then."

He left his right hand under hers and used his left to rub his eyes, thinking about the conversation. He tried for a combination of honesty, friendship and distance. It wasn't easy. "For what it's worth, Sam, I have talked to you more in the last twelve hours than I remember talking to anyone in the last six years. The only person besides you who knows I own the Cessna is Tom, and Harry's the only one out here, or anywhere for that matter, who knows the story behind the cabin that I told you this morning."

He swallowed and offered a bit more. "The thing is that most of what I've been involved in over the years I don't particularly want to remember. And, after Charlie died, and Sara left, I got used to not talking much to anyone. Habit, I suppose. "

Her worry was apparent in her eyes. "I didn't mean to intrude, Jack."

He shrugged. "You didn't. Sam, asking about electrical systems, credentials and languages could in no way be considered anything except casual conversation by any sane person on the planet." Swallowing, he tried to joke to break the tension. " And you should note the emphasis on 'sane' here, because I do think that's an important point you ought to be thinking about."

She gripped his hand and looked away, back out toward the window. "You're one of the sanest people I know."

He smiled to himself and returned the clasp. "If that's the case, you definitely need to get out more, Carter."

She just gripped his hand tighter and smiled, a private Carter smile, not really looking at him.

He watched the fall sun come in through the window, creating patterns on the workshop floor and adjusted his position on the workbench, pushing himself back with this arms locked, palms on the edge, to a more comfortable location. Sam shifted as well, her shoulder brushing against his as she moved. They settled into a comfortable silence, even while his thoughts were in overdrive. All told, he'd never been more unbalanced in his life, and that was saying a lot. He wasn't sure how it was possible, but Carter was able to take him from amused to annoyed to confused and back to amused in seconds. In the last day, he talked more seriously with her than he had to anyone in years, and yet couldn't remember joking quite so much as well. When she touched him, his emotions ranged from simple pleasure to desire to flat out lust. And he'd better get the last one under control, fast. But one thing was sure; given that he knew where this couldn't go, wherever it was possible to go he'd see out to the end of the story.

She finally broke the silence that had settled. "So, fishing."

He grinned, and let go of his meanderings. "Nah, I've changed my mind."

"We're not going fishing?"

The surprise in her voice was unmistakable; so was the relief. He stored the latter into his "ways to torture Carter" file, and continued. "Nope. Well, you're not. I am. Fishing's an active sport and you need to relax. I figured you might enjoy bird watching."

"Bird watching?"

"Not a member of the Audubon Society?"

"Haven't had that pleasure."

"Ah. Well, you're missing something. This time of year you should be able to sight Great Blue Herons."

"Is that right." The irony in her tone was unmistakable.

He called her on it. "Carter, sarcasm does not become you. And as for the herons, I should mention that they like to hang out in the tributaries entering the big lakes, so we'll need to do some scouting around."

"I see."

He grinned. Clearly, she was getting the point. "Yeah. Of course, if I was by myself, some of the folks around here might think it was odd if I was …exploring. I do have my own well-known preferences for fishing holes. But given that you're a bird lover, and want to see the herons, well, nothing could be more natural than looking around."

She smiled. "I'd love to look for herons. Sounds perfect."

"I thought you'd agree." And with that, he got up, and pulled her up off the workbench as well, ready for the rest of the day.


	10. Chapter 10

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

Sam jumped off the boat, landing on the dock, ready to grab the ropes and secure the rig for the night. She waited; watching as the Colonel slowly brought the boat in as close to shore and to the pier as possible.

The afternoon had been enlightening. For one thing, she'd never realized how much the Colonel liked toys; large, powerful toys admittedly, but toys they were in the end. Of course, she known about his motorcycle and his love of flying, and she'd known he had a boat in Minnesota, but she'd never really understood how much he liked playing with them. It was an amusing thought; she'd never thought of him as someone who had an affinity with machines. Usually, she spent her time focused on trying to keep him away from machines and anything possibly breakable, especially when he was fiddling with something potentially dangerous in her lab.

She grinned to herself and grabbed the rope the Colonel threw her, watching as he shut down the engine. She slowly pulled the boat to the docking poles; that done, she began securing the starboard line. The Colonel jumped out and began securing the stern. She hunkered down, secured the knot, and grinned again, continuing her train of thought.

What had been really eye opening was the change in the Colonel's behavior towards her since their conversation that morning, which had clearly had an impact. The result was unsettling, to say the least. The fact of the matter was that a Jack O'Neill smiling at her, relaxed and trying to be open about his past was a new experience and one that was very, very dangerous. A gruff CO she could handle. A man who was thoughtful, considerate and just flat out … charming, and damned if he couldn't be extremely charming when he chose to be, was almost overwhelming, but not quite.

She sighed, thinking. What **was** flat out overwhelming was how hard he was trying. She shook her head, grinning at the memory. Clearly, casual friendship wasn't like riding a bike for the Colonel. He didn't just get back on, remember how it worked, and start cruising. He was …rusty. And so she'd spent the day adjusting as his mood veered from openness to his usual reticent sarcasm. And there'd been something else; something she'd seen in his eyes when she caught him off guard that she knew was in her own as well and was best not to think about. But even putting that aside, truth be told, it was the combination of gruff, rusty charm that was so attractive; he was the Colonel, still abrupt, difficult and erratic; but those characteristics blended with moments of clear enthusiasm for life and personal openness was a truly potent mix. He lived; he'd clearly loved; and he'd survived tragedy, bruised but intact. She wondered briefly what he'd been like when he was young; if he'd always been as cynical he was now or he'd just learned it over the years, and then shut the thought down. Understanding the guts of the man, how he'd come to be what he was, was dangerous territory. Just the current package without that kind of understanding was nearly irresistible, especially when he was smiling at her like he was now, his dark eyes focused on her, inviting her to enjoy the humor behind the story the was telling as he tied down the line.

Damn. This was just so not… the thought disappeared as fast as it had started, as she stood up too quickly and promptly tripped over the ropes she'd just secured. The Colonel was next to her in what seemed like seconds, steadying her from what would have been a nasty fall into the water and against the boat's edge.

"For crying out loud, Carter, are you ok?" He grabbed her shoulders, clearly exasperated.

She shrugged into his chest, embarrassed, trying to regain her equilibrium. "Yeah. It was incredibly stupid. I was just distracted." She'd be damned if she was going to say by what.

"Sure." He moved his hands down her arms and then released her, his expression suddenly unreadable. He turned and bent down, checking the knot she'd made to secure the boat. "Nice job, Major. Where did you learn to make a Fisherman's Bend?"

"My dad."

With that the Colonel turned back to her and looked up from his kneeling position, questioning. "Jacob again?"

She shrugged, recovering, and ran her hand over her arm. "Yeah. When he was stationed in Tacoma, we used to rent sailboats. He wouldn't let me sail until I'd learned a perfect Fisherman's Bend. I must have done it fifty times one day before I got it right."

He looked away from her towards the sunset and sat down on the pier, his arms resting on his knees, his hands clasped between. "I bet it was perfect."

His tone sounded slightly off. For some reason she felt she needed to explain. "It was just part of growing up military. Every time we moved, Dad made sure that my brother and I experienced what he called the 'local color.' "

He gestured for her to sit down next to him on the pier, and they watched as the sun, a fiery orange ball, began to send sparks through the clouds, creating a wild display of ambers, golds and purples as it set slowly towards the horizon and the lake. The Colonel put his sunglasses back on, watching quietly. Silence settled between them as they listened to the animals and the birds settle in for the night, the wind that had been at their backs all day settling into a cool evening breeze. He finally seemed to come to some sort of decision, although she couldn't figure out quite what. But then, she rarely could read him easily. He wasn't an easy person to know.

"So… tell me more about growing up 'Carter'."

She shrugged, surprised at the question. "Not much to tell. Standard military brat story. Dad was reassigned every four years, as usual, so we moved around a lot. I was seventeen when he made General and was assigned to the Pentagon. You know the rest; I studied at the Air Force Academy, did a stint in the Gulf, came back and finished my PHD at MIT and then joined the gate project."

"Where all was Jacob stationed?"

She ran her hand through her hair, trying to remember. It was years ago that she'd live it and years since she'd thought about any of it. "Seemed like everywhere. I was born in D.C. and they moved shortly after to San Antonio. I don't remember much of that. Then he was stationed at Pope in North Carolina. I think that was his favorite assignment. After that, we relocated to Wright-Patterson in Dayton. That's where my mother died. It was about a year later that we moved to Tacoma. Four years after that Dad was promoted and we went back to D.C. He spent most of his early career in Germany, as well as a stint in Nam, of course, so by the time I was born, he was mostly stationed stateside, with an occasional stint back in Europe. I'm still not quite sure what he was doing then. After he was promoted to General, he was transferred back and forth between D.C and Europe until he retired. "

"What about you?"

"What about me?" She was confused by the question, and distracted by the beauty of the evening. The sky had turned to ever deepening reds and golds, and the rhythm of the waves as they broke on the shore was soothing.

He tried again. "What was it like growing up moving so often?"

She looked at him curiously; it seemed like a question that was out of character. He shrugged in response, and then grimaced. "Just curious. I'm a Minnesota boy, born, well not quite but close enough, and bred. Didn't leave until I joined the Academy. So… I'm just wondering."

She tipped her head, acknowledging his curiosity. It was a simple enough question to answer, after all. "To be honest, I don't remember much of any of it. We just…moved around a lot. It was normal. "

"Must have been hard to leave your friends, school, and start over. "

"Not really, sir. I've always been, as you'd call it, a geek, and so I was usually ahead of whatever was being offered in class, so the moves were pretty easy over all. I never had to catch up."

"What about friends?"

She shrugged. "I wasn't much interested in social stuff. I knew I wanted to join the Air Force by the time I was five, and fell in love with physics in the eighth grade, when I first encountered it. After that, I just kept focused. Moving didn't mean much, except that it took a while to adjust to a new house, new town sometimes."

He shifted, putting his legs over the edge of the dock, favoring his knee. "So, you developed your own standards."

She snorted, remembering, and blurted the first thing that came to mind. "Hardly. I spent most of the time just trying to live up to my father's standards."

"Yeah. I've noticed that Jacob's an expert at conditional approval."

She stared at him, somehow annoyed by the comment. "I didn't say that."

He shrugged and looked back at her, cocking his head in agreement. "You didn't need to. I've seen him in action."

She snorted, acknowledging his point. "Yeah, well, my father is unique. Reminds me of you in a way."

That got him. He stared at her, astonished. "Excuse me? Did you just say I reminded you of your father?"

She grinned. She couldn't tell is he was more horrified at the thought of being compared to Jacob in general, or just being compared to a man close to twenty years his senior. But either way, she'd taken him off balance. "Actually, in some ways you do. You're both stubborn, decisive, and used to giving orders and expecting them to be followed."

"Carter, I am not like your father." Yep, there was clear horror in his tone.

She coughed back the laugh that was forming. "Of course not, sir. You're –" She let the thought dwindle off as she looked back at him and her breath caught in her throat. He'd taken off his sunglasses again and what she saw in his eyes was mesmerizing. She swallowed. The fact of the matter was that the Colonel was one of the most attractive men she'd ever known; strong, fit, just damned…but more to the point, and especially the point she needed to focus on right now, he had no idea of his effect on women. She'd seen it dozens of times in the SGC; he was totally oblivious. She shook the thought clear and finished her sentence. "You're definitely not like my father at all in a lot of ways."

He looked half-way relieved and half-way annoyed. "Thank you, I think."

She blinked and tried to finish her original thought. " It's just that my father has fairly high expectations for everyone. Always has. I suppose that's what got him the general's stars. You're like him in that regard."

He snorted. "Well, that's not happening here as long as I can help it, Carter, so we're both safe on that one."

He paused and then continued. "So from the age of five, you wanted to be Air Force. Never questioned it."

She tilted her head to look at him, surprised at his persistence. It was very unlike the Colonel to keep at something when it was personal, or at least unlike the Colonel she'd known before this morning. But he'd answered her questions honestly; she was obligated to do the same.

"I did, actually. It was after we moved to Tacoma. My mother had just died, and my father… well, he just seemed move on. He had his work; and I couldn't understand at the time." She shrugged. "I suppose I was at the right age for rebellion, anyway." She grinned, remembering what at the time seemed like full-blown revolt. "If you could call it that. The whole business consisted of not talking Air Force to him for three years, taking AP classes at U Dub the minute I was eligible, and spending a lot of time in the mountains and in the wilderness around Seattle and Tacoma when I could. I doubt he even realized I was rebelling."

He grinned at her, clearly amused by the story. "Yeah, Carter, it sounds like you were seriously acting out."

She smiled. "Yeah. So, anyway, to make a long story short, the AP classes convinced me that physics was right, but theory without practice wasn't. So, I got over my funk, and enrolled in the Air Force Academy when I came of age. End of story."

"So, Tacoma was where you developed a liking for the outdoors?"

"I guess so. Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering." He gestured toward the lake and the forest behind it. "You seem to like it here; I just wondered when you spent any time in the wilderness. There hasn't been much time for R&R since we've been stationed at the SGC."

She looked over at him, surprised again by the direction of the conversation. He looked like he'd just solved some sort of puzzle. It was strange. She asked the obvious question. "Why do you want to know all this? As you said earlier today, 'it's such ancient history even I've forgotten it.'"

He kept his eyes on the sunset. "I don't know. I guess I was just curious about what you were like as a young girl." He shifted, thinking, and cleared his throat. "Besides which, Carter, Jacob and I aren't the only ones with high expectations. You have pretty high expectations as well. I suppose I'm just trying to get a feel for why."

"I don't."

The Colonel just looked at her. She flushed, acknowledging the point. "All right, maybe I do at times. But it hardly has anything to do with where or how I grew up."

He shrugged. "Maybe not."

She shook her head, bemused at the sudden turn in the conversation. "I thought you detested psychoanalysis, sir."

He stared at her, surprised. " I do. Bunch of crap. But I do think that experiences have an impact."

"You do?"

"Yeah."

Okay, that was a weird thought. She put it aside to chew on later. "So, what is it that you're asking, sir?"

He turned away again, his gaze unreadable as he watched the sun create yet another display of colors; this time the deep maroon and purple striations across the sky. "I'm not trying to intrude, Carter. The day has been… unusual to say the least. And this friends stuff… isn't easy."

Something was bothering him; that was clear. "It's ok. Really. Ask what you'd like."

He shrugged. "It's pretty simple. I'm asking about you, Sam. I'd like to understand why you worry so much."

She rejected the thought. "I don't."

He interrupted her, and ran his hand through his hair, his tone gruff and rusty, apparently determined to finish now that he'd started. "I can't imagine what it's like to be a woman in the military, but I have had other women under my command over the years, though not nearly as brilliant as you are. They didn't second-guess themselves the way you do, which you do even when you've just pulled our asses out of what was sure to be a terminal situation. Mind you, I'm not objecting. As your CO, I approve completely. It never gets in the way and your checking and rechecking data has saved our butts at least a dozen times. I'm just wondering why you feel the need to do so."

She had absolutely no idea what to say. She knew she ought to say something; but at the same time, she just couldn't. In the end, the Colonel broke the silence.

"Look, Carter, I'm sorry. It's none of my business."

He stood up and looked away at the shadows that were forming on the lake from the trees and the setting sun and finally broke the silence that had settled. "For what it's worth, Major, I trust you as my 2IC and as a scientist. You asked me earlier today why I didn't offer more suggestions about science. To be honest, I'm not sure I could, but if I needed to I would. But I don't need to, not with you at my back. I know you'll find the answers and you'll do what needs to be done. I've trusted you with my life more than once, and I'll do so again. And there are no conditions attached to that."

She stared at him, stunned, and finally stood up. "I – you really trust me that much?"

"Of course I do."

She swallowed, suddenly overwhelmed. "I really don't think you should."

He interrupted, clearly exasperated. "Carter, have you ever been able to accept a compliment gracefully?"

"Uhh.. probably not, sir."

He shook his head. "Figures. OK, let me make this easier. You have the damndest habit of insisting on explaining science to me, forget to make a practical risk assessment when there's some new technology to explore, and are far too easily influenced by Daniel's damned flights of fancy for my taste, but I wouldn't want anyone else at my back. Is that clear enough for you?"

She stared back at him. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Let's get some dinner."

He turned away, but she stopped him by grabbing his arm and pulling him back in her direction.

"Jack?"

"What?"

"Thank you."

He pushed the hair that the wind had blown into her eyes away from her face, and she looked down, embarrassed that he could probably tell that her eyes had misted over. Unconditional acceptance of what she was, flaws and all, was something she'd never expected from Jack O'Neill of all people; in fact, she'd never expected it from anyone.

His voice was gruff. "You're welcome, Carter. And I've told you before, you really do need to get out more." He put his hands in his pockets, looking away. "We should head back to the cabin."

She shook her head. "I'd like to finish watching the sunset. I'll be there in a minute."

He shrugged and turned away, grabbing his fishing gear out of the boat as he left. "Suit yourself. Dinner should be ready in an hour."

She watched as he headed down the pier and through the thoroughfare that led from Spooner back to his pond and the cabin. As she lost sight of him, she took a deep breath, calming down, and stared at the last streaks of evening sunset of rose and reds, trying to focus. The stars were beginning to break through the dusk as the sun finally sank into the horizon. The air was crisp and at least ten degrees colder than the day; the lack of the heat of the sun's warmth now that it was gone, cooling everything.

She stood quietly; listening to the silence as the breeze stopped and the lake became a clear, calm pool of night, reflecting the last shadows of the day. He was an amazing, charming, kind, brusque, dangerous and completely unpredictable man. And a devastatingly attractive one; when he touched her, even accidentally, it sent shivers down her spine and her unconscious into overdrive. When he smiled at her, she seemed to lose whatever rational thought she might have had. And she wasn't the only one who had a problem; she was pretty damned sure she saw in his expression the same thing she felt every time she caught him unaware and their eyes connected. She wondered what it would have been like if they'd met somewhere else besides the SGC and then turned the thought aside, damning herself as an idiot. He was her CO, for god sakes, and he'd already outlined what he was willing to offer. His friendship and support was already more than enough. Whatever else there was between them had better stay locked away. They were adults, after all. They could control their behavior. This desire…part… was simply that. The Colonel was right; he'd been right the first night they'd come up to the lakes. They just needed to get the whole thing out in the open and then they could both relax. They just hadn't discussed all the possibilities yet.

As she headed toward the cabin, her path lit by moonlight and the late evening dusk, she hoped she was right.


	11. Chapter 11

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

Jack stared at the soap bubbles in the sink, watching as they popped one by one, and decided that they probably had a point. What it was, he wasn't sure, but if he stared long enough it would probably come to him. And then again, maybe not. He grimaced. He should have mentioned that earlier today to Carter; "soap bubble" was another language he just couldn't get the hang of.

If 24 hours ago, anyone had told him that things would be even more tense now between them than they were before, he'd have rejected the thought and argued the point. Which just went to prove that while he might have a handle on military strategy some of the time, when it came to the personal, he was way out of his league. A bubble popped in agreement. He shook his head, and tossed the plates into the sink; watching as they soaked and diluted the conversation.

The problem was that what he would really like to do right now was have a nice, long, and hopefully very uncomfortable talk with Jacob. At least, he hoped it would be uncomfortable for Jacob. Personally, he'd enjoy the process. And the problem with that was that it was none of his damned business to have a talk with Jacob. He ought to be thanking the man profusely for raising the best 2IC he'd ever had; instead, he wanted to bust his chops for setting up unreasonable expectations for Sam when she was young. Which was completely and totally crazed. He expected more out of her every day at the SGC than Jacob ever had; and she always delivered. He had no business calling the man on encouraging the very traits of her personality that he used to his advantage on a regular basis.

Dinner had been awkward, at best. He hadn't planned it that way; but the fact of the matter was that the cabin just wasn't set up for bright lights and superficial conversation. Of course, he hadn't realized that either; he'd rarely had anyone at the cabin for dinner; maybe once, twice when Harry and Anne or Frank had come by. The cabin was run by solar, when they had sun, which wasn't often, and the generator, which he tried not to use unless necessary, and so light for dinner had consisted of the starlight coming through the windows, the fire he'd started in the fireplace, and the usual lanterns he used. It was practical; it was necessary; and it was hopelessly romantic. Exactly what they **didn't** need, given the situation. Needless to say, given the conversations of the day, they were both jittery and disjointed by the time they'd finished eating.

But the real problem was that the whole day had just been too intense. Although they'd gotten some of the "friends" discussion further straightened out, the desire part, at least on his part, was getting steadily out of hand, and although he knew he was an adult and could control his actions, he couldn't seem to stop practically jumping out of his skin every time she accidentally touched him or came in close proximity. From the looks of it, Sam didn't seem to be faring much better. She was as jittery as he'd ever seen her. And they'd certainly quit teasing each other hours ago. Just getting though the normal process of the day was tough enough without added complications.

His back to the room, he started washing the dishes, and tried to decide what to do about the problem, but every idea he had seemed doomed to failure. Finished drying the plates, he turned quickly towards cabinets to store them and ran directly into Sam.

The bowl in her hands crashed onto the floor, shattering.

She stared down at the pieces, stunned. "Oh, for.. this has got to stop."

He had to agree with that. He bent down to help clean up the mess. "Here, let me."

"No, stop." She grabbed his hand and started to pull him up. He stood up, confused. She stared at him seriously.

"Jack, do you really trust me? I mean, not just work. Personally trust me? "

He just looked at her, surprised at the question. "Of course."

She swallowed. "Okay, here goes."

He stood, stunned, as she pulled his head down and kissed him. Somehow, his arms, rather than pushing her away, wrapped around her, and pulled her closer into him as she deepened the kiss, her tongue tangling with his. When she surged against him, he pulled her hips to his, lost in the moment, unable to stop.

She finally put her hands on his chest and pushed her upper body away, breathing heavily. "Oh, boy. I – sorry."

His breath was coming in short gasps as well. He pulled her head down to his chest and ran his hand through her hair, trying to calm down. "God, Carter, what was that?"

"Proof."

"What?" He could barely hear her, and his hands couldn't quite seem to stop shaking.

She raised her head to look him in the eyes. "Proof. Now we know what it would be like. And we have proof that we can stop this when we choose."

He swallowed, and pulled her against him, still trying to calm down but unable to stop the connection. "I don't know about you, Sam, but the stopping part is a little difficult on this end."

She mumbled into his chest, her arms still locked around his waist. "Yeah, sorry. I think I underestimated the… well, nevermind."

He ran his hand through her hair again, trying to calm down, now honestly confused. "So..what is going on here? I mean beyond the obvious of getting us reassigned and court-martialed."

She shook her head. "Not getting us reassigned or court-martialed."

"Come again?"

She shrugged into his chest. "It was the only way I could think of to break the tension."

With that, he put both of his hands under her chin, pushing her head up so he could look into her eyes. "This is breaking the tension?"

She half laughed, half groaned. "Yeah, maybe the plan could have used some modifications. Sorry."

He released her chin, running his hands down back to her waist, able to consider her comment now that his breathing was starting to slow. "No, I think you're right."

"I am?"

"Yeah. I mean, we've been in … close proximity for .. what.. ten minutes now and no one's been physically injured, nothing's gotten broken, and we're both still standing. That's progress."

"Yeah."

He put his chin on the top of her head, continuing. "So.. you're thinking apples."

"What?"

"You know, forbidden fruit. Take a bite, find out what it's like, and then things calm down."

"Uhh.. I think they got kicked out of the garden of Eden, Jack."

"Yeah, well, if you're going to get technical on me, I'd say the Air Force ain't exactly the garden of Eden. And my point is at least they got to eat apples."

At that, she looked up at him, clearly mystified. "Excuse me?"

He shrugged. "I just mean that I understand **your** point, Carter. We've been jumpy all day and it has to stop. And the best way to do that is to prove we can handle this and then define what exactly an apple is, as in establish some limits."

She shook her head, considering. "So, limits."

"Yeah, limits." He paused and then continued. "I'd say physical proximity is ok. Accidental touches, falling asleep on shoulders, hugs, stuff like that." Given that she was still in his arms, it seemed ludicrous to suggest anything else for that one.

"Yeah, I can handle that." She shifted slightly, grinning.

He continued, remembering. "But the kissing part..."

"I think we better consider that a one-time experiment."

He grinned, more comfortable now that they were in agreement. "Exceptions include alien take-overs, viruses, drug-induced scenarios, that sort of stuff."

At that, she laughed. "I can handle that, too."

He released her, and she moved away slightly. He leaned back against the counter, putting his hands in his pockets, thinking. "Seriously, Sam, we have to make this work."

She looked back at him, rubbing her left hand along her right arm. "I know. I honestly think it will be better now."

He thought about it. She was right; something did have to give or they'd both be basket cases by the end of the trip, and this was a compromise that just possibly might work. Grinning to himself, he leaned over quickly, grabbed her chin and kissed her. This time, as he'd hoped, it was sweet, but calm. Somehow, just by acknowledging what was there and doing something about it, they'd managed to break some of the tension.

She broke away, but she was smiling. "What was that?"

"Sealing promises and proving the point. Besides, if any of this ever got anywhere, at least we're equally culpable."

She stared at him, suddenly serious as well. "I – thank you for that."

He grinned and let it go, changing the subject. "So, now that we're in agreement, I'm still hungry. We should start dessert."

She followed his lead. "And that is?"

"Baked apples with cinnamon, of course."

Smiling, he handed her a knife, and watched her groan as she started to core the apples. But knowing Carter, she wasn't long in a riposte.

"So.. yet another secret family O'Neill family recipe? Any chance I could get some info on this one?"

He grinned, letting the conversation go where it would. "Well, now, yes, this is another old O'Neill family recipe, so I suppose you would need to be an O'Neill before we talk… uhh.. apples in this case. "

He paused and then smiled. "Of course, the O'Neill's have been known up upon occasion to grant honorary status."

"I see."

"I really hope you do, Sam."


	12. Chapter 12

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

Three days later, Jack grinned and shifted his position against Carter's back in the boat as he sent his line out over Spooner once again. The day was clear and cloudless, and the fish, being fish, were refusing to bite what so ever, which suited his mood exactly. Sam was leaning back against him as well, using him as a prop while she stared through the binoculars looking for evidence of drug production at the mouth of a tributary that led into the lake. They were alone: no houses, boats or human activity within 20 miles distant, as far as he could see. All and all, it was perfect.

The last three days had been pretty perfect as well. The amazing part was that Sam's plan had worked; after the first day's discussions, they'd both relaxed and the tension between them had settled down. And if maybe he touched her a bit more than was normal, well, neither one of them were ready to jump out of their skins anymore. All and all, things were good. They had also settled into a routine that exactly suited his mood; swimming, breakfast, then work on the cabin, followed by walks along his pond or nearby lakes or fishing for fish and the human foul they hadn't quite promised but in the end had mutually agreed they'd look into for Frank. There'd been picnics for lunch along the water shore, and dinners at the cabin followed by chess or watching the stars on his deck until late with a campfire slowly burning down as they talked. Somehow, she always ended up with her head on his shoulder as the evening progressed; it was comfortable to him now and somehow seemed right. And as they'd talked, he'd gotten to know how her mind worked, and her moods; gotten to know a bit about her past and let her into some of his as well.

He smiled to himself. He could certainly now add to his list of Carter classifications; sure, she was brilliant and beautiful; but that was just stating the obvious. The important part was that she was argumentative, driven, and in his opinion, naively optimistic. He suspected that the last was a characteristic that would remain with her the rest of her life, no matter what age. That, and the fact that she couldn't function without cream in her coffee, and indeed refused to even drink said coffee without cream, was clearly what characterized her charm, a charm that would last.

And he'd learned a lot that might come in handy later. The fact of the matter was that Carter was seriously accident-prone when she was distracted and off-duty. He would never have guessed it. Major Doctor Samantha Carter, who was one of the most sure-footed airmen he'd ever worked with, was just flat-out dangerous on earth. He grinned to himself, but took note of the problem. The first time she'd gotten distracted was with the electrical system, where she'd come close to burning herself and the rest of the cabin down. That he could explain as an accident. But in the last two days, she'd also managed to burn herself while working on the boat's engine, and to hurt her hand climbing down from the roof of the cabin while they were reworking the electrical system for the addition. In both cases, due to proximity, she'd ended up in his arms again, like the first time. Not that he was complaining, nope, not at all. But the irony of the situation was that having Carter land in his arms with regularity was almost becoming part of a comfortable routine.

The odd thing was she was obviously getting comfortable with him as well. For whatever reason, his habits didn't seem to grate on her like they had on Sara or most of his friends. In fact, she seemed to take them in stride. He grinned to himself and decided to up the ante. A 2IC who thought he was comfortable was fine, in fact great, but one who thought he might be predictable was something he couldn't afford. "So, Carter?"

"What?" She kept her eyes on the tributary, and shifted against his back. And yeah, she wasn't calling him Jack very often yet, but at least she'd stopped with the sirs and the Colonels. It was a start.

"This has been nice, but it isn't exactly going anywhere."

She sat up suddenly, obviously flustered. "What?"

He grinned to himself, finished bringing his line back in, and then casually turned towards her. "We're only covering five tributaries a day. There's at least five hundred miles of lake shore nearby, and at minimum 50 tributaries that might be the source. While this has been fun, it's not going to help Frank. " He raised his eyebrows in what he hoped was a surprised and innocent look. "Why? What did you think I meant?"

"I – never mind. It's not important."

"Ah." He grinned and looked at his watch. " Anyway, I called Frank this morning and suggested he come by the cabin at around four or so this afternoon to talk strategy. I also asked him if he could set us up with a seaplane that doesn't scream 'police' that we could use to scout the area. We can cover a lot more ground that way and the Cessna's too cumbersome to use around here. I thought we could do some reconnoitering tomorrow."

Carter recovered, as predicted. "Sounds like a plan."

He started breaking down his fishing rod, and cleaning up the gear in the boat.

She looked at him questioningly. "It's only two. There're still a couple of hours before we need to head back."

He shrugged. "I know. But I thought we might as well put up the ceiling fixture while we're waiting for Frank. If we take the plane out tomorrow, we won't have any time to work on the cabin."

He took her nod for a yes and started the engine.

TBC ...

A/N. Thanks for the comments on this tale and the alerts. I very much appreciate it. Sam


	13. Chapter 13

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

Frank VanderMoor finished reading the message tacked to the front door telling him that when he arrived he should head to the addition where Jack was working. As a result, he walked into Jack's cabin unannounced, but hell, it wasn't exactly breaking and entering. He had been invited after all. And truth be told, he was extremely curious about Jack's Major. Jack had rarely brought anyone up to the lakes before, let alone a woman; it was so outside of his character that Frank would have found a way to show up one way or another regardless of an invitation and whether or not they had decided to help him track down the meth lab.

He could hear voices as he headed inside. He stopped and listened, trying to assess the situation before they saw him.

"Jeez…I cannot believe that you actually bought a chandelier made of **antlers**." The Major's voice sounded muffled and she was breathing heavily.

Jack, on the other hand, just sounded exasperated. "We're in Minnesota, Carter. Antlers are required decor. And if you didn't want to put them up, you could have let me do it, like I suggested."

"Not a chance. I wired this ceiling; I'm finishing the job. It's just this thing is …damn… awkward. I – ow! Those prongs are sharp."

"Damn it, Carter, look out. You're shaking the ladder." Jack's voice was a mixture of annoyance, urgency and warning.

"I can't – oh hell." Frank heard the sound of something heavy hit the floor and rushed to the doorway, afraid the Major had fallen, and ready to help.

He wasn't needed.

Jack grabbed her as she fell off the ladder. She slid down his body until she was standing face to face with him, her arms around his neck and his around her waist. Frank stood quietly where he was and stopped, watching. If he'd had any questions before, he had the answers now. They were completely unaware that he was there; still focused on each other, not moving from out of what could only be called a compromising position, and they both seemed totally oblivious to that fact.

Instead of releasing her, Jack pulled her closer to him, his tone still exasperated but also slightly amused now. "I **told** you, you should've let me put it up. The job calls for a longer arm span than you have. Of all the stupid, unnecessary risks you've--"

The Major interrupted him, equally exasperated, although she was smiling back at him. "Don't be ridiculous. I never take unnecessary risks. One of the prongs just got in the way."

Jack moved one of his hands from her waist to her face, pushing some hair out of her eyes. "You never take **what**? What about P3X787? You want to explain that? "

She grinned again, shifting her hands to his chest. "I already did. It was in my report. I was not going to let them shoot you, no matter what you ordered, and General Hammond agreed with me after. Besides, climbing up a six-foot ladder, even with some stupid antlers, is hardly the equivalent of rappelling down a three hundred foot cliff in the middle of a driving rain with six Jaffa at your six. And what about you? Talk about unnecessary risks. P3X989 was --"

She stopped suddenly and turned her head. Busted. Frank cleared his throat and coughed. "Hi, Jack."

Jack turned toward him, casually releasing his Major. The Major seemed equally relaxed and unconcerned as she turned to face him as well. Looking at how comfortable they were, Frank revised his earlier assumption that he had all the answers. Either they'd been in a relationship for a long time, which wasn't likely given what he and Jack had talked about just last summer, or they didn't realize …well, what this looked like. And if so, that meant that the whole situation was totally innocent. They were too relaxed and too comfortable with each other and with his presence for this to be anything besides one or the other.

Jack smiled at him and then looked at his watch, nodding a greeting. "Frank. You're running late. So, more junkies?"

He shook his head. "Not lately. Not since the last two you caught, who by the way, have given up exactly nothing." He shrugged off the disappointment he'd felt when he couldn't get them to talk. "I'm late because of a head-on on 53. It took a while to clear. Luckily no one was hurt much." He gestured toward the floor, where the antler chandelier was lying on one side. "Sorry to interrupt. Looks like you have your own problems."

Jack shrugged. " This? Nah, this is nothin'. Carter was just demonstrating some of the techniques she used to pass her agility tests in basic a very very long time ago."

"Oh, 'for crying out loud', sir. Enough already." Frank watched, amused, as the Major sent a mock punch to Jack's shoulder and he blocked it easily, grinning as he grabbed her wrist, then slowly released it. Frank watched, less amused, as Jack smiled at her again, a grin on his face that in ten years of knowing the man Frank had never seen before.

"Truce, Major. As your CO, I'm willing to testify to your demonstrated agility skills under … difficult conditions and when opportunities arise."

She grinned back at Jack, completely ignoring his innuendo or taking it in stride. "I'm glad we're clear, sir."

When Jack, smiling, finally broke the connection between the two of them and turned back to him once more, now serious, Frank tried to focus on what Jack was saying, and not on what he'd just seen, but he only heard half of what the man said.

"… so, I thought we could discuss what needs to be coordinated if Sam and I do find the lab." Jack paused. "Frank?"

"Yeah, sorry. Just tired. It's been a long day."

Jack looked at him questioningly. "Not surprising. Would you like some coffee, a beer, something?"

Frank tried to clear his mind of assumptions and get back to the matters at hand. "A beer would be great."

A half hour later, nursing the last of his beer, Frank tried to make sense of what he'd seen and heard during his visit. After clearing up quickly in the addition, they'd relocated to the living room of the cabin, with Jack and Sam, as she insisted he call her, on the couch, while he settled into an easy chair that was positioned to look at the fire Jack had started, at the two of them on the couch, and through the tall, wide windows that provided a panoramic view of Jack's pond.

All in all, the conversation had been very soothing, because for once he wasn't just on his own. This time, it was Jack who had proposed a course of action that, in the end, they all agreed to once Sam had backed it up with the science. Or it might have been the other way around; Jack had developed strategy based on Sam's take on the science. In the end it didn't seem to matter. Frank looked over at his friends, thinking. It was obvious that they were used to working as a team, used to tossing ideas back and forth and finally coming to consensus. It was also clear that there was an understood command structure in which they operated that was completely natural to the both of them.

He watched as Jack casually stretched his arm out on the top of the couch and Sam leaned her head back against his hand while they talked. They were totally unconscious of the connection. They were happy, calm and enjoying themselves. And enjoying being together, which from everything Frank knew about the military, and he'd served himself, was probably very dangerous to them both professionally and personally.

Frank took another drink of his beer, stretched his legs and put them up on the footstool in front of him. He was a local sheriff in a small town; that was what he had always wanted and hoped to be. Sure, he'd served his time, but it had been four years in the Marines, not a lifetime commitment, like Jack or Harry or Sam. He let his worry for his friends go, deciding it was none of his business. Life was too fragile and too short, and the work that Jack and Sam did, the hell with stories of deep space telemetry, was clearly dangerous. Jack knew what he was doing more than most. If he and the Major could find some happiness, who was he to judge how?

A/N. grin.. ok, sure, I said I wrote this in 2005 or 6. Really I did. But the next two chapters need some edits, so won't be posted the way the rest of this has been. Again, thanks for comments. I appreciate them. Sam.


	14. Chapter 14

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

Two days later, Frank groaned and shifted in his spot in the bushes, his legs hurting from staying in one position too long as he scoped out the mobile home and the trees around it.

It was dark, he was cold, and the whole situation was damned uncomfortable. It was 6 a.m., the sun just beginning to find its way out of the lingering shadows, providing a thin trickle of light through the striations of grey cloud above them. He looked up at the cloud cover, calculating from experience how long he thought it would be before the front would arrive, and finally decided that it could be a few hours away; a day at most. But a strong storm was headed their way. The day would be cold, variable and blustery. Autumn in Minnesota; with its extremes and variations.

His breath came out in small clouds of white as he pulled his jacket tighter against the morning chill. He rubbed his gloved hands over his face trying to wake up, thinking about the next few hours. The current situation had all come about because Jack and Sam had located the lab on their excursion the day before in the seaplane he'd arranged for them to borrow.

Somehow, he'd known they would find the lab, even if the odds against it had been astronomical. And so, here they were, preparing to talk the perps out and take them into custody.

Technically, he was in charge of today's operation. It was his turf after all. But in reality, Jack and his Major were quietly running the show for him. And although he was nervous and tense about the situation, Jack and Sam were clearly enjoying themselves, almost like it was a busman's holiday for them. Frank sighed, wondering again just what it was that his friend did for a living, and then decided to let it go and just thank whatever was out there that Jack had decided to visit this week.

He looked out through the trees, identifying his people. There were eight of them covering the mobile home at different points; his deputy, four friends of his out of the Grand Rapid and International Falls Departments, Jack, Sam and himself. A meth lab clean-up crew from Duluth was stationed and waiting 200 yards away, ready to move in quickly once the situation was secure.

By all accounts, there were four perps in the mobile home, all of them armed.

According to Jack, the whole business was a "piece of cake." Frank sat silently, reviewing the plan they'd agreed on last night. The overall idea was to catch the perps unawares and then talk them out. Jack had wanted to just move in, without discussion, but the Major had talked him out of that approach; her argument based on the volatility of the chemicals in the lab and the uncertainty of whom they were facing. She thought they should negotiate with the perps, if they could. In the end, Jack had accepted the Major's recommendations, with some grumbling about "plan a, b, and c", whatever the hell that was. Evidently, however unclear that was to him, they seemed to know what it meant.

Frank grimaced. At the time, he'd just gone along with their leads, grateful for the company and the discussion, and someone else to be involved in the planning. But now, in the morning light, as the operation was about to begin, he was beginning to second guess all of it, not that he had any answers of his own. He turned the thought aside; he'd decided to trust Jack and he'd continue that way. This was not the time for questioning the agreed upon approach. He just hoped that if "plan a" didn't work, "b and c" were clearly thought out in Jack's and the Major's minds.

Frank watched the morning light begin settle into the upper branches of the trees, and decided he needed to get the show started. And in his opinion, it was now or never. The perps wouldn't be awake yet, but his team would have some light for the operation. He gestured to Harrison to start the negotiations.

At his command, Harrison's head appeared above the bushes, a bullhorn in hand, ready to begin.

Harrison didn't have a chance.

Frank watched, stunned, as Harrison fell to the ground before he'd even gotten a word out, hit by what looked like a bolt of electricity coming from an open crack in one of the windows.

Kitterman broke cover to pull Harrison back into the trees. And then, abruptly, there was silence.

He started to use his com system to check on Harrison, but his hand was pulled away from his jacket. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Jack and the Major were next to him, lying prone in the bushes. Jack released his hand.

"He's alive, Frank, and he's alright."

"How do you know--"

"Not important. But I do know." Jack's quiet, calm voice, edged with a clear command tone continued. "Carter, that was zat fire and they obviously know we've been out here for a while, planning our supposed surprise. Do you sense anything?"

The Major shook her head in the negative, staring at the building. "Too far, sir. I can't pick up anything."

Jack continued. "All right, we don't have time for a complete threat assessment. Assume snake-heads."

Frank broke in, startled. "Assume **what**?"

Jack ignored him. "Major, we're going to plan B."

"Yes, sir."

Frank watched something silently pass between Jack and Sam. He broke in, confused. "We're what?"

Jack answered. "Plan B. We're not trying to talk them out; we're going to have to take them out, permanently in a worst case scenario, and captured in the best. And we can do that. Even though they know you're here, the Major and I can still take them by surprise because all they're expecting is a stand-off and negotiations with the local police."

"You can't just go in guns blasting and --"

"Frank, think about the logistics of this operation. You've already let them know that you're here; and in a normal scenario that should have played. Normally, you'd negotiate until they came out or would have left them in there until they got tired, hungry, or blew themselves up.

"But, trust me, they just upped the ante. I can't let you let them escape, and negotiations won't work with this group. Carter and I have to go in."

Jack paused, thinking. "Given that it's a sixty-foot trailer and the windows they haven't boarded up are all in the front, it's probable that they'll be covering those, thinking that they're safe there. So that means they'll be in the first thirty-foot or so in the trailer, and the rest will be empty. We can't gas them out, because we can't chance hitting something in the lab.

"So, the plan is that the Major and I will circle around the back, blow a hole and go in together."

Jack looked back at him, clearly having made his decision. "You're the diversion; keep them talking and keep them busy."

He turned to the Major. "Carter, you with me? Anything else?"

"Agreed, sir. But we **do** have to go in carefully, or we might accidentally blow the lab. Meth in production is extremely ..."

"…volatile. I know, Major. You've mentioned it before. But given what we know now, if it does blow, it might save the SGC and… a lot of other people …damage control operations later, considering that the problem would be solved. There's a lot at stake, and we need to contain 'it' while we can, whatever way we can. "

Frank watched as the Major shook her head in agreement. "Understood, sir."

Jack looked back to him. "Frank, do you by any chance have any C-4 in your current bag of tricks?"

"C-4?? I—." He never had the chance to finish, because the Major answered for him.

"Not an option, sir. We'll blow ourselves up for sure."

Jack grinned a grin that Frank thought was not just strange, but scary. The Major seemed to take it in stride, though, raising her eyebrows ironically.

Jack's response was even stranger, his grin lighting his eyes. "All right, be picky, Carter. We survive in Plan B. Can you put together anything that can get us through the hull alive?"

"Yeah, I think so. But it's going to be --"

Jack interrupted her. "Go. Watch your back. I'll be right behind you."

Frank watched as the Major melted into the brush. Then he stared into the calm but icily determined eyes of a man he didn't recognize, someone who clearly no one crossed easily.

Jack gestured towards his rifle, and Frank finally handed over his weapon, somehow not able to do anything else. Jack checked it automatically. "Thanks. Frank, the problem here is that we don't have time to go through bureaucratic routes to change the command of this operation, so you have to believe me when I tell you that you're over your head. You need to let me run this. Do you understand?"

"I—"

"Do you understand?"

Jack must have seen something stunned in his expression, because he grimaced, and then continued more mildly. "Sorry. I clearly need to get out more; get a life, whatever. But right now, Frank, the fact is that you don't know what you're dealing with; hell, I'm not even sure about what's in there. But I have a damned clearer idea than you possibly could. You have to trust me."

Frank swallowed and decided to trust his instincts. "I understand. You're in charge."

"Thank you. Now here's the deal. Under no circumstances is anyone to try to enter or go near that thing; not for any reason. Keep your men back and the clean-up crew well away from the area. Treat it like a hostage situation, and pretend to try to talk them out. They won't buy in, but the discussion will distract them, and that's what we need. Do not, under any circumstances, let any of them escape. Try to disable, but if you have to, shoot to kill."

"Jack, I can't do that."

"Then Carter and I will. If we can't make it out, we'll blow the whole thing to kingdom come and that will be the end of it, although you will have a hell of a clean up problem afterward. Contact General George Hammond at this number and get him out here immediately if that happens. Understood?" He handed him a card.

"Yes." But Frank realized that even as he acknowledged the comment, he was talking to no one. Jack was already gone.

TBC

A/N Thanks again for reviews and alerts. I appreciate it. Sam


	15. Chapter 15

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

A/N. Thanks for the comments and alerts. I appreciate it, very much. I'm posting two chapters today; the rest should come shortly after. Thanks again.

Thinking quickly, her adrenaline on overdrive, Sam grabbed what she needed from the clean-up crew, thanking whatever was out there that there was a clean-up crew with all of the associated paraphernalia. It wasn't her lab, but what she had was good enough. She hoped.

She headed to the back of the trailer and waited for the Colonel, reviewing her plan, lying prone in the bushes. He wasn't long in arriving. She could sense his presence even before she heard it. But then, she always could. He landed silently down beside her, and took position to her right.

"Carter?"

She heard the unspoken question. "Yes, sir, I have what I think will work. Seeing as Plan B currently includes our surviving, we need to get in there without alerting them to our presence. And that means whatever method we use to cut a way in will have to be very, very quiet. And unusual. If it is a Goa'uld, it'll be prepared for any standard break-in. The thing is --"

He grinned. "If this about you coming clean concerning the naquadah you brought to the cabin to play with that you plan to use now to get us in, I already know."

"I --uhh…you do?" Ok, that was surprising. She thought she had been pretty discrete. Huh. She made a note mentally to remember that nothing really missed his radar screen.

"Yep. So?"

"I've been working on a way to use naquadah to start a reaction to ..." She stopped suddenly when she watched his movements. Clearly, he didn't want the details. She swallowed and got to the point. "I think I can just … melt the wall.

"Once I start a chemical reaction, the side of the trailer will quietly… very quietly… crystallize. We'll have to shatter it once it cools to break in. They won't hear the reaction, but they will hear the shattering."

"Cool. You're really gonna melt a wall?"

She sighed. "That's the idea, sir."

He looked at her questioningly, obviously thinking about where the technology had come from. "Dad?"

She shrugged. "Yes, some. But not exactly. The research is based on the Tok'ra tunnel technology. I've been working on –".

"Got it, Carter. And this will take how long?"

Yeah, that was the question. Ugh. She offered up the best she could calculate, given what she had tested in her lab, which wasn't much. "Maybe three minutes, possibly four, if it really does work and I don't just blow ..."

The Colonel interrupted her before she finished. "Sweet. So, that's the plan." He looked at the layout of the trailer, considering. " The best point of entry is there." He gestured to the far back end of the trailer that faced into the woods, away from Frank and his team. "If Frank can keep them distracted in the front, they won't realize we're back here until we shatter the wall, and if we move fast enough we should be able to neutralize them before they know what's happening."

She didn't say anything. Honestly, she didn't know what to say. He'd already incorporated a completely untested experimental technology into his strategy, assuming it would work. Yeah, like usual.

He looked back at her, questioning her silence. "You with me, Carter?"

She sighed. Just like business as usual. "Yes, sir, but this is all still … very dangerous."

"C'mon, Carter, it's a trailer. We're breaking into a trailer. What could be so hard? Sure, we're using cool new technology to do it, but in the end, it's still a trailer and there are four of them and two of us. The odds are seriously in our favor."

Ok, that was enough. Now she was annoyed. "It's a trailer with a lot of lethal chemicals and some consequent major firepower that could blow us all to hell, sir. And I haven't even run simulations of the melt down in my lab. If I haven't calculated quantities correctly or there are any sparks --"

"You might as well test it here as there. Think of it as a field test. And you have calculated it correctly. C'mon, Carter, it's a trailer. It's not like you're trying to blow up a star or something crazy like that."

"I—a **star?** That's not possible." Her mind boggled at the idea, distracted.

"Who knows what could happen? Anyway, just think of this little expedition as a walk in the park, a practice trial, so to speak."

She grimaced. The data was in; Jack O'Neill was totally nuts; completely and irrationally confident in her abilities, which was proof positive of his insanity; but yet she knew from experience that he was brilliant when it came to military strategy and action in the field. But damn it, this was very dangerous. She hadn't tested the technology he was counting on working.

She sighed. And he knew that. She'd argued her views, and he taken them into consideration, but he'd made the call, a dangerous call, on how to proceed knowing what she was doing was … a long way outside of experimental. It was his decision. She had to trust in that, because in the end, she did trust him.

She quit worrying. They didn't have the time to debate the question, and if there really was another Goa'uld on Earth, well. He had a point. They needed to solve the problem, whatever it took to do so.

He turned to look at her, suddenly breaking from his military persona. "Worried again, Sam?"

Huh, and she'd forgotten to mention in her list of "Colonel" items that he was good at understatement. She raised her eyebrows ironically, and shrugged.

He turned his head and then smiled. "No need, Major. I trust you, and I think I've mentioned that before. We'll make it work."

She gave it up and smiled. Whatever was going to happen, would happen. "Got it, sir. It's 'practice for blowing up bigger things'." She rolled her eyes, mimicking him. "As you'd say, 'a piece of cake'; 'no problem', 'just a 'walk in the park'."

"Glad to hear you're with the program, Major. And I think I've also mentioned before that sarcasm does not become you." He smiled. "It's a very delicate art. Trust me on this."

She grinned, distracted for a moment, and then continued to think through the objectives at hand. "Even if this insane idea I have about how to get in works, there's still the question of a possible Goa'uld."

He shrugged. It was clear he'd already calculated that into his plan. "Yep, there's that. But the good news is that it doesn't know we're here and onto it. And if it is a Goa'uld, it's going to be heavily into self-preservation, seeing as there are no convenient sarcophaguses around. It won't blow itself and us all to hell just for the … uh… the hell of it.

"But if we do disable them, it might try to change hosts, so watch your back."

"Yes, sir. But Colonel, regardless of the results of my … experiment, anything can spark an explosion in the meth lab; even a gunshot or zat fire in close quarters."

"Then we'll have to be sure to disarm them fast and not miss."

Oh sure, just a walk in the park. "Yes, sir."

His eyes were suddenly serious. "Major, Plan C is that we blow it and us up if there is a Goa'uld in there and we can't take it out any other way. We cannot let it go; not on home ground; on Earth. Ready?"

She grinned. Yep, she was right. Business as usual. Plan C was that they blew themselves to hell. Definitely, absolutely business as usual. She was alright with that. It was, in fact, comfortable.

"Yes, sir. Ready."

He grinned. "Good. Then let's get this over with. I assume the more distraction from Frank and his crew right now the better. And if he can find a way to shatter some glass out there when he need him to as a diversion, even better."

"Yes, sir."

"Got it. Go." He gestured her to start the melt-down of the wall as he stayed prone, telling Frank via his cell phone to up the noise, keep the confusion level high, and find something to break on his command, all the while keeping his eyes and weapon on her six, covering her back.

She moved carefully, finally inching closely enough to the back of the trailer to set up the reaction. She saturated a portion of the wall with a solution she'd prepared from the clean up crew's chemicals, then added a compound derived from the naquadah. There. It was done.

She backed away, still close enough that if the whole thing looked like it was going to blow, she might be able to do something to stop it. What that was, she didn't know. If push came to shove, she'd work something out.

The Colonel moved to her position, landing silently next to her. Then they waited and watched. A four by four foot of wall slowly turned crystalline white, sizzling, glowing incandescently, expanding out towards them.

She closed her eyes and counted 120 seconds, slowly. And then opened them again. The wall was a sheer, luminous, shining piece of glass, reflecting the burn of the reaction.

She grinned. It had worked. Her untested, untried completely crazed idea had worked.

Yeah, right. Now all they had to do was break in and take out a potential Goa'uld and three of its followers in a meth lab full of volatile chemicals. Yep, piece of cake.

When the time she had predicted would be needed for the wall to cool, she nodded at the Colonel. He moved to far end of the trailer.

"Now, Frank." He waited until he heard glass shattering in the front of the enclave, and then used the butt of his automatic to shatter the wall.

It cracked easily, breaking into huge shards. He cleared the edges and then put his back up against the part of the wall that was still solid, gesturing for her to follow.

She took position, her eyes on his back and the periphery.

Once in, she assessed the situation. They were in what was originally a bedroom, but now a storage room, chemicals everywhere, the walls lined with shelves. The door to the main room was closed.

The Colonel moved to the door, signaling to her, and then quietly flipped it half-open. He looked at her questioningly, and she shook her head, unable to tell yet if one of them was a Goa'uld.

There were four of them in the lab positioned under or to the sides of the windows, all armed, still unaware of their presence. She followed the Colonel silently into the room, staying low, using the lab benches for protection.

She hoped he was right; if the men had any sense of self-preservation, they wouldn't shoot at targets that were literally under their meth operation.

"Put the guns down. The party's over, boys."

One of them, stupider than the rest, turned and raised a zat, aiming at the Colonel. The Colonel took aim and shot him in the wrist.

She watched, horrified, as the zat fell to the floor but away from the chemicals next to the window. The perp fell screaming to the ground. She breathed in a sigh of relief when nothing exploded.

The other three dropped their guns. It was over.

"Hands up, behind your heads." The Colonel gestured with his automatic and grinned. "You know the cliché." He stood up when they complied and began herding them out the door.

"Carter? Still no indication of snake-heads?"

"None that I can detect, sir." If there had been a Goa'uld here, there wasn't one now. For that, she was eternally thankful.

TBC...


	16. Chapter 16

Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

16.

If Frank had ever wondered what Jack really did, and he had, he had a good idea now. In the end, Jack and Sam took out the lab in less than ten minutes. Frank heard what sounded like glass breaking, followed by a gunshot, and then watched as Jack and the Major herded four men out of the trailer.

Jack signaled to him and Kitterman to cover the prisoners, and then threw one of the men on the ground, his automatic directly in the man's face. "Carter? You're absolutely sure about snake-heads?"

She shook her head, watching the rest of the prisoners as Kitterman cuffed them. "Yes, sir."

Jack stared at the man underneath him. "Well, then, you're much less of a bother, but you still are a problem. Who do you serve?" When the perp didn't answer, he shook him.

The man choked and caught his breath. "Seth."

Jack looked up at the Major. "Seth. Damn, it figures. We should have known."

The Major shrugged, agreeing. "It makes sense, sir. He probably had a number of back-up locations to head out to if he needed them. But we saw him die. It doesn't mean he's still out there."

"When was the last time you saw our good old buddy Seth?"

"He'll return soon."

"How long?"

"Soon."

"Oh yeah, you betcha. Sure he will." Clearly disgusted, Jack stood up and stared at the Major. "This crew probably doesn't know anything, but we better inform Hammond and get an interrogation team out here just to be sure. And I'll ask him to send another team to clean up the lab and look for…artifacts. Can that wait until they arrive or do we need to move now for some of it? I don't want that thing to blow now that we're secure, but I don't want any evidence to accidentally walk away."

"We need to do some of it now, sir, but most of it can wait. " At his gesture, she turned and headed back to the lab, indicating that the cleanup crew should follow.

"Jack, what do I do with these guys?" Frank stared at the four perps, the last of which Jack had clearly lost interest in when he threw him over to Kitterman to tie up.

"Nothing. They stay exactly where they are, and you stay exactly where you are, covering them. I'll take care of it, but for right now, no one moves and if they do, shoot 'em."

"Jack."

He looked at the prisoners and shrugged. "Fine. I'll shoot them. It'll save me some paperwork later. As it is, I'm going to be knee-deep in it for days."

Frank grimaced, staring at the deliberately ruined, shattered windshield of one of his police trucks, wondering how he was going to explain to Central Admin that it had been necessary to the op. Like he had a clue. He sighed. "I know the feeling."

Jack grinned. "I think I can arrange for Uncle Sam to help with the repairs. But in the meantime…" He pointed towards Frank's com system.

Frank shrugged, and handed it over. Jack's grabbed field operations phone and dialed.

"General. Yes, sir. Good to talk to you as well. Yes, sir, I am on still on vacation. But the fact is we've run into a situation out here. Yes, sir. In Minnesota. Sorry, sir. I know it's… uh… 'damned irregular'."

The rest of the day was a blur in Frank's mind and probably always would be. Four Air Force helicopters arrived in what seemed like minutes and Jack and the Major went into action, ordering a lock down and sweep of the of the area. Frank knew the routine; he remembered it from his time serving in war zones. The fact that it was happening now when they were at home and at peace was something he didn't want to acknowledge, even to himself, not in Minnesota, and not on his watch -- even if Jack was there to run the operation.

One thing was clear. This op sure as hell had nothing to do with deep space telemetry. Whatever Jack and Sam were into was big and they were scarily good at it. Frank decided, in the overall scheme of things, he really didn't need or want to know anything else.

Jack suddenly turned and looked at him. "Frank, you're all going to have to be de-briefed. And all of this is—"

Frank interrupted him. "I know. It's classified. It's more than classified."

"Glad to hear we're on the same page, Frank." Jack grinned, but Frank couldn't quite manage a grin back. "Because after all, all that happened today was that we broke up a meth lab. Just your everyday walk in the park."

"Yeah. Yeah, sure it was."

TBC..


	17. Chapter 17

Harry Yakovitch picked up the last of the dinner dishes and headed into the kitchen to help his wife prepare dessert. Dinner had been a success, as far as he could tell. He and Anne closed the bar every Tuesday evening; it was a chance to relax from the weekend rush and to entertain friends privately. He'd been delighted when Sam had accepted his invitation to come eat with them on their day off. After all, they'd known Jack for a long time; close on twenty years now, and he only occasionally accepted their standing invitation. Apparently, Sam was able to persuade him where they could not.

He grinned, thinking over the evening. It was true that what he and Anne did for entertaining was somewhat unusual --they'd served a private meal for the four of them in the public bar, while closed. But hey, it did work. And Jack and Sam had seemed to take that in stride. Besides, he was rather proud of the bar, if he did say so himself. It had a casual, rustic elegance; pine and birch wood throughout, a huge stone fireplace, and great views of the lake through the high open glass windows. Truth be told, he was happy with the place, and his bartending days had been enjoyable, relaxing and lucrative. It was a significant change from his past in military, his life now was clam and predictable. He liked it that way.

Sam and Jack were happily ensconced, playing a game of pool. He'd left quietly, grinning, as he watched them argue over the game. In fact, they had been so focused he wasn't sure if they realized he'd gone. Sam had broken, and was currently wiping the table. Jack was whining. He could see why: Sam was deadly with a cue stick; of course, he knew from experience that Jack was no slouch, either, but it was obvious that Jack wasn't going to get a shot in. He was toast. Harry had decided to leave before blood was spilt. Better that way. Oh yeah.

The evening had been surprising, to say the least. Frank had told him about the meth lab op and that Sam and Jack were scheduled to help. So, he'd thought they might mention it. But neither brought up the event, even though he knew it had gone down. Frank had called to beg off from dinner, indicating paperwork and other obligations, but had at least admitted the operation had gone well.

But that's all he would say. And for Frank, that was unusual. Something had clearly upset his friend; and seeing as they often talked about Frank's job and what was happening in the county, Frank's refusal to discuss anything was disturbing. All and all, the whole business was interesting and worrying.

But it was also clear that whatever had happened that day was business as usual for Jack and his Major. They were completely relaxed. Hell, they hadn't even been late; they'd shown up at 7 p.m., arriving at the dock in Jack's boat as scheduled, even with the 20 minutes it took to travel from Jack's pond and where his boat was docked to his and Anne's end of Spooner.

Sam had charmed Anne from the moment she'd walked in the door. Sam really was an amazing woman; friendly, warm, and thoughtful, not to mention drop dead gorgeous. He grinned. The last was a thought he'd best keep to himself, seeing as if he did mention it, he wasn't sure who'd kill him first -- Jack or Anne. He smirked. Or Sam, for that matter. Yep, that thought was best left unsaid.

The conversation during dinner had ranged over a number of topics, some of them military, but most of them about Minnesota and the wilderness. It was clear Sam loved the place.

And a few other things were becoming clear to him as well. And those were worrisome.

He sighed, and walked into the kitchen, preparing himself for the inevitable inquisition that he expected from Anne about how dinner had went and what was going on. It wasn't long in coming.

"So..." Anne scraped off some of the plates, and turned to put them in the dishwasher.

"So, desert ready?" He wasn't going anywhere he didn't absolutely have to.

"Of course not, and don't act dense. So…she's in love with him."

He sighed, accepting the inevitable. "You think so?"

"Oh yes." She continued scraping the dishes. "The cake's in the fridge. Get it out, will you? It needs to warm up before we serve it."

"Sure." Glad for the diversion, he opened the refrigerator door and took out the cake.

"Harry."

Clearly, he was not going to get out of this discussion that easily. Harry looked carefully at his wife and considered his answer.

"I guess I'm glad to hear it, because I don't ever think I've seen Jack look at a woman the way he looks at her – not even…"

"Don't say it, Harry."

"Yeah, probably tacky, given what he's been through. But still."

She smiled and started cutting the cake. "So, how do you think he looks at her?"

"Jeez… Anne."

"Describe."

Exasperated, he answered her sarcastically. "Beyond the obvious? That they're always in each other's space, don't need to finish sentences, smile at each other like idiots and that neither of them seems to realize they're doing all that?"

Undaunted, she continued. "Yes, beyond that. How do you think he looks at her?"

"Oh hell, Anne. Do we really have to have this conversation?"

She grinned. "Yes."

He'd really been married too long. He knew that look, and knew he was toast. " You **know** I'm not good at this stuff." She waited. He sighed. "He looks like he…"

She interrupted. "-- adores her. I can see it in her eyes as well."

"Oh, c'mon. That's just not right." OK, he liked Jack, but anyone adoring him was … well… just a yucky thought.

Fortunately, Anne seemed to actually see his point. "Yeah, I guess not. There's something different in her eyes when she looks at him."

Harry grimaced, exasperated. This was **so** none of their business, and honestly, he was worried for his friend. He let the worry out, and came clean to his wife about his concerns. "I hope it's at least respect and admiration, because Jack sure as hell deserves that, especially after what he's gone through."

"Harry?" She was clearly surprised by his comment.

But this just wasn't business as usual; they weren't just quietly gossiping about friends, or a hopeful romance on Anne's part. This was serious.

He shrugged and looked away. "I don't want to see him hurt, not again, and this is just a recipe for disaster."

She looked over at him, her confusion evident. "Why should it be? I mean, I know they're military, but people do have relationships in the military. I don't see why it's a problem."

He sighed. "Anne, they're not just military. It's clear from what Frank was willing to tell me that they must be special ops, and they're a team. Even Frank's brief description of how they took down the meth lab was too clean, too practiced, for them to be anything else. What's more interesting is what Frank wouldn't say. But from the way we saw those Air Force helicopters move in like a swarm of mosquitoes over the lakes today, they're clearly into something big, something important.

"The Air Force isn't going to sit quietly and let some of their best trained personnel request reassignment for personal reasons, and given that Sam's Jack's 2IC, there are no other options without them both getting court-martialed."

"Oh, c'mon. There must be hundreds of specially trained --"

"Anne, even before Jack retired, his reputation was that he was one of the best, if not the best, special ops commanders as well as one of the best pilots around. And I told you about Sam, about her being a theoretical astrophysicist. Frank says she's brilliant in the field as well. And she took out the junkie at the store without my hearing a thing, and I trained in that myself. So, no, there aren't that many people out there like them."

She stopped cutting cake and considered his comments. "And what they're doing is probably pretty big."

"Yeah."

She turned to the sink and washed the knife she'd been using, thinking. "I'm just not buying this. I mean, it's not like they're the last stand against saving the world, or something. Nothing's that big. It's not possible."

He shrugged. "Maybe not, but whatever it is they're into, they're going to have to see it to the end before any kind of … relationship would have a chance."

"Or more likely one or both of them is going to end up dead before then if this is that big."

"It's possible. What they do can't exactly be easy and has to be extremely dangerous."

She shook her head. "It's a damned shame."

"It's who they are."

She sighed again. "Well, the good news is that I don't think they realize they're in love with each other. Maybe sometimes ignorance is bliss."

Harry grimaced. "Yeah, that's the part that worries me the most."

TBC...


	18. Chapter 18

18.

Jack turned up the engine speed and let the spray of the boat hit his face. He navigated by the stars, the lights of the boat almost useless in the darkness. He thanked whatever was out there that the lateness of the hour and their speed made discussion impossible. He wasn't sure he could talk.

How could he have possibly been so stupid? How could he have let this situation get so out of hand?

He thought back on the day and the early part of the evening. It had been fun, even amusing; a busmen's holiday. Sure, they'd had a possible disaster with snake-heads, but in the end it was pretty clear that the meth-heads were just an old cell of Seth's who didn't realize his day had come and gone. And dinner had been quiet and amusing.

And then Harry had managed to leave the door open between the bar and the kitchen, and they'd overhead Harry's and Anne's conversation. He'd watched Sam's face turn white, and he nearly broke a cue stick while he tried to pretend that none of it was happening.

Somehow, they'd made it through dessert and gotten out of there as quickly as possible. But once alone, neither he nor Sam had managed to say a word. He couldn't even begin to grasp the problem, let alone know what to say.

Damn all of it anyway.

The problem was that it had snuck up on him like a soft summer -- no damn it, that wasn't right and he hated clichés. If anything, Sam was like a crisp fall day with colors startling in intensity, full of quick, unexpected changes like Minnesota's clear blue skies that could transform in an instant to thunder clouds of grey with gold shining out through the darkness. She was breathing taking and unpredictable and absolutely compelling. And it had been so easy to fall under the spell of it all, to feel alive again and connected, just so damned easy.

He was too good at lying to himself; too good at finding a justification for actions he knew were wrong, but he went ahead and did anyway.

Of course he was in love with her; he'd probably fallen the day she walked into his life, but he'd managed to keep it locked up until now.

God, just the idea that Harry and Anne saw so much… He tried to calm down, sorting through memories in his mind. Her friendship, companionship, the comfort he felt in her presence, the desire he felt for her, carefully banked but burning there beneath the surface, and just her smile that could change his mood from gloom to laughter in an instant – he should have understood the implications, should have stopped this before it got so out of hand. And now, he had no idea how to fix it.

He slowed the boat to his dock on Spooner, and gestured her towards the through-fare to the pond and his cabin. She left without a glance. He locked the boat hanger, securing it for his next visit, if he ever managed one again, and thought about just what he was going to say when they were alone.

The house was silent and dark when he entered. He navigated by memory and by some moonlight shining through the windows. He walked through the rooms, remembering the last week. In each, Sam was somehow now a part of the memories. She was there still, conversing with him, working, talking, laughing. Damn.

He half-expected her to be in bed, avoiding him entirely, but he found her out on the deck, waiting, her back to the deck door, looking out at the night sky.

He didn't know what to say. He cleared his throat, and tried something, anything, to retrieve the situation.

"Sam."

"Sir."

"I --." He stopped, confused, and watched as she moved her hand over her eyes.

"Anne's always had an overactive imagination, Sam. You don't need to think… I mean… it's just that she and Harry have been trying to set me up since my divorce. They keep …trying to find happy endings." He stopped suddenly, unable to think of anything more to say that wouldn't make the situation worse than it already was.

She kept her back to him, leaning her elbows on the deck banister, and stared out at the stars. "Of course they do."

The silence that settled felt colder to him than the chill of the evening air. He needed to do something; they couldn't leave things like this; but there was nothing he could do or could say, except...

He walked up behind her and pulled her hands away from the deck, gently tugging her back against him. "I'm sorry."

She leaned into him and then suddenly turned and put her face against his shoulder, her hands on his chest. "So am I. "

He had no idea how long they stood there, saying nothing, and yet everything that needed to be said silently. He just wrapped his arms around her, and held her as the stars shone relentlessly down on them, waiting for their return. But finally he released her and walked away.

TBC…


	19. Chapter 19

A/N. This chapter WAS NOT part of the original tale. I wrote it as an add on because of some grumbling from a friend who wanted more resolution at the end of LSBW. The original story ,as written in 2005, moved from the chapter 18 immediately to 20. So.. if you are into serious UST and cannon, do not read this section. It's an add-on. And honestly, I'd like to know who likes this scene or detests it. Comments very welcome.

19

Sam stared out the window of the guest bedroom, watching as the early morning sun tried to break through the storm crashing over the lakes. Meager rays created broken patterns of light and dark throughout the room even as rain began to sleet down again against the window and on the roof. It was dark; it was grey; and it was lonely.

She hadn't slept last night. It was impossible even to think of sleep, but that wasn't unusual. She'd spent a lot of nights awake in her life; assessing and then reassessing both the benefits and the danger of the course she'd chosen. Sure, she'd made some mistakes before, but she'd never regretted anything.

She was damned if she was going to now. This was too important. Jack was too important.

The question was what to do, what to say, how to make the untenable, tenable. Time was running out. All they had was another day here; in fact, that's all the time there was to come to some sort of closure on this part of their lives. From the way Jack had walked away from her last night, she was sure that he'd already made his choice; inadvertently had made choices for both of them, given what he believed. And what he believed was at the heart of the matter.

One of the things that she'd learned from this trip was that Jack O'Neill was a man who had a great deal of hope for other people and for life. He just didn't have much of any of that for himself. In the end, he really did believe that he was expendable and just a statistic. And in military strategy, he was right. In that construct, they both were expendable. That's who they were and who they'd agreed to be. It was the chance they took.

But that was about the job they did. It didn't extend to the personal.

She tried to focus; tried to think through the problem. The fact of the matter was the she was clearly in love with Jack O'Neill, whatever that meant, and she was pretty damned sure that he was deeply attached to her as well. She loved his optimism combined with his cynical take on the world, his willingness to fight against the odds in impossible battles, his modesty on all things intellectual, his arrogance and assurance about all things military, his steady hand guiding all in his domain. She counted on and trusted in his unconditional support, in his enjoyment of life and living, and in his belief in her and in his friends. She loved his cracked sense of humor and the way he could shift from serious to silly in a nanosecond. She loved his continuous appreciation of the beauty of the wilderness and his respect for all living things. She trusted him, unconditionally, implicitly. And she wanted him to be able to trust her as well, and wanted for them both to be able to deepen the connection they'd built.

And that was, of course, impossible by any reasonable standards, given that they were military and their positions didn't permit or encourage that kind of connection, and they were fighting a war that showed no signs of stopping in their lifetimes.

But then, they hadn't survived this long by following all the rules. She got out of bed and grabbed her courage, what was left of it. It was time to talk to Jack.

She opened the door to his room quietly, thinking that he might be asleep. Of course, he wasn't.

He was already dressed, staring out at the view of his pond through his bedroom window, watching the rain and the wind crash down, sending all into disarray. The usual black of his sweater and jeans somehow seemed more foreboding than they normally did, and reflected the grey of the morning outside the window.

The rain beating on the cabin's roof set a pattern; it was a static and yet erratic rhythm she could hear in her head as it slowed and then rebounded, pushing her forward in its urgency.

He turned towards her and watched quietly as she entered, then ran his hand through his hair, saying nothing, and finally turned again to the window, looking out at the storm clouds and the sky.

He tried joking, but his voice was hollow. "Nice tee shirt, Carter. I wondered where that had gone. I've been looking for it for the last three days."

She ignored the joke and waited, silent.

He sighed, acknowledging that she wasn't going to let him avoid her so easily. His back still turned, his tone now serious, he commented. "I'm sorry, Sam. I thought we might be able to leave today, but there's no chance with this storm. I don't want to fly the Cessna in this. In fact, we're grounded according to air control. I checked about an hour ago."

"I'm not."

He finally turned and looked at her, his eyes nearly black, intense and apologetic. "Major, I -"

"Don't."

He rubbed his hand through his hair, grimacing. "Don't what?"

"We're still on leave. The name is Sam, or Carter, or anything else but Major. Not now. Not today. Not yet."

Before he could say anything, she closed the distance between them and put her hand lightly over his mouth, then moved it along his lips, silencing him. "They're wrong."

He grabbed her hand, moving it away from his face to his to his chest, silent, but his eyes questioning.

"Harry and Anne are wrong. We're not going to die and neither are they on our watch, even though they don't understand the seriousness of the situation. Damn it, Jack, you're the optimist, not me, and as cynical as you pretend you are, you always believe we'll get through. And I believe in you. We will win this war in the end."

It wasn't all she meant to say, in fact, it wasn't nearly enough, but she had to start somewhere, and it seemed little enough of an offering; to suggest she believed in him, when he'd done the same for her.

He grimaced. "If we do get through, Carter, if we're that lucky, that day is a long way away. I wouldn't count on it."

She stared him down. "I **am** counting on it. I'm counting on you." When he finally reacted, shrugging, his expression noncommittal and the look in his eyes unreadable, she pushed the point, determined to make him understand. "Jack, I know that this trip hasn't turned out to be what either of us had planned. But I –"

He interrupted. "It was an ill-planned break, and something better left undone."

"It was a well-timed vacation. It was needed, necessary, and I don't regret a moment of it. It was right. Jack, we're right. The hell with the rest."

He turned and walked away from her again. She was losing the battle; she could see it in his movements, determined and decisive, closed to her.

"I should never have allowed this situation to get so… complicated, Sam. I'm sorry. The responsibility's mine, and the error. When we get back, I need to—"

"—continue to be who you are, who you were before this …break, who you need to be to solve the problems we're going to face. And I know I need to do that as well."

She rubbed her hand over her face nervously; worried that he'd interrupt before she had a chance to finish. "God, I'm sorry I'm not doing this right, but you need to understand what I'm saying. I'm having a hard time explaining. Give me a minute."

He turned, looking back at her, his expression unreadable. "Carter?"

Something she said must have gotten through, because suddenly he was finally listening to her, honestly listening, not blaming himself, not taking all of the responsibility on his shoulders and leaving her none. He was silent, perfectly immobile … waiting.

She swallowed. "Okay, here goes. No one can live alone all the time… not anyone. Not even if there's a goal to be achieved, no matter how important that goal might be. There has to be a connection, Jack, at some point, at some time, to people who care. We both needed this time together alone. And I know that our time together is ephemeral, fleeting, and nothing more than a moment right now. But eventually there will be an end to this fight. And we **will** win out in the end. And then we'll have time to think about something more, together. Whatever we want. And I do promise you that."

He ran his hand over his eyes, considering. Time seemed to stop while he thought about her words.

He finally reacted. "God, I don't know. Maybe you're right about some of this, but don't promise what either of us can't be sure of. The future's a long way away, if ever. I'm not sure that --"

She walked over to where he was standing, and ran her hands up his forearms, settling them against his neck, bringing his body closer to hers, using her physical presence to reinforce her words. "I'm sure. And I know that whatever happens now, today, that tomorrow we have to go back to what we were. But Jack, it's the morning, and it will be light again, and right now it's just the two of us. And if you are correct, this day will have to last us for a long time. I--." She stopped suddenly, unsure of what to say, unsure if he'd agree to her unspoken proposal.

He finished for her, moving her closer into him, holding her as she was used to now, both of them knowing it was dangerous, but unable to stop the connection. " Just now this is a dream and a break and something insubstantial."

"It's a break, yes, and a dream of what we will have someday, but it's not insubstantial. I do promise you that."

"Sam, don't promise what you can't be sure of."

"I'm sure. And I know that whatever happens now, that tomorrow we go back to what we were. But for now --"

He stopped her then and from the smile in his eyes she knew he finally understood. "I can live for a long time with that."

She moved into his arms. Somehow, she knew she belonged there. It was right. And she thanked whatever was out there that Jack seemed to know that as well. And then there was nothing left to say, just to feel.

TBC... Last chapter coming shortly.. grin..


	20. Chapter 20

20.

Daniel Jackson grabbed some coffee and what looked like scrambled eggs and headed into the dining room of the cafeteria, searching for Sam. He found her in the back of the room, her laptop in front of her, a half-eaten tray to one side.

"Hey, Sam. Welcome back."

She looked up and smiled. "Thanks, Daniel. How are you feeling?"

He shrugged. "I'm still not cleared, although Janet did let me out for breakfast, so..." He left the sentence drift off unfinished and took a bite of the "eggs", deciding that they were close enough to be edible, whatever they were. "How was fishing?"

"Carter; Daniel."

"Jack." Daniel watched as Jack took the chair next to Sam's and pushed her half-eaten tray back in front of her. She raised her eyes in mock exasperation, but closed down the laptop and started eating.

Daniel cleared his throat, breaking up the private interaction. "I was just asking Sam how she liked fishing."

Jack took a bite of his breakfast and then grinned. "Technically, Carter is still a fishing novice. She never actually threw out a line."

Daniel looked carefully at his friends, but could detect nothing out of the usual in their expressions. "Yeah. I heard you were busy and took out a cell of leftover Seth followers. How did you know they were out there? "

Jack just shrugged and continued eating.

Daniel grimaced, annoyed. "You could have told me, you know. I would have liked to help."

Jack shook his head. "Daniel, I asked you to come fishing and you turned me down. If you didn't feel up to tossing a line, you wouldn't have been much help breaking down a meth lab, let alone avoiding zat fire."

"Yeah, well, still..." Daniel stopped and finally worked up the courage to alert his friends to what had been going on in their absence. "The gossip was off the charts in the SGC until everyone realized that you were doing some undercover work. Why the secrecy?"

Jack's expression was blankly noncommittal. "Nothing to tell until we ran into the cell."

Daniel persevered. "As a cover story it was pretty odd."

At that, Jack looked up, clearly exasperated. "For crying out loud, Daniel, what is the problem with two colleagues going fishing?"

"I-- there's no problem. Nothing." Daniel knew from Jack's response that his reply was the only explanation he was ever going to get. Whatever had really happened on this trip was going to stay locked up in Sam and Jack's memories, and he knew from experience that they could clam up like steel traps when the need arose.

He turned the topic back to Seth. "I understand they've been able to locate another five cells through interrogation."

At that, Jack subsided. "Yeah. Clearly, the snake-head had a lot of back-up plans, just in case. SG15 and 16 have already taken out four of them, and the fifth is just a matter of time. Let's hope it's the last."

Daniel put his fork down, exasperated, and looked from Jack to Sam and back to Jack again. He was pretty damned sure that he wasn't getting the whole story and never would. Sighing, he tried one last time. "Will you please explain to me what it is that you find so damned fascinating about fishing? "

Jack was quiet, his movements precise and measured. He finally answered. "It's not about the fishing. It's about clarity."

Daniel snorted. "Oh, c'mon, Jack. A philosopher you're not. What's that supposed to mean?"

Sam broke in. "The Colonel's right. Somehow, when you're out there, with the blue skies, the lakes, the quiet, it clarifies what's possible, what is, and could be someday."

Daniel watched as some sort of unspoken communication passed between his friends, their expressions closed and serious.

Then Sam smiled and continued. "After all they do call it the ...

Jack grinned and finished the line for her. "...land of sky blue waters."

Whatever else Jack was going to say was lost for good. Daniel watched, stunned, as Jack dematerialized in front of him and Sam nearly knocked over the table in her urgency to hit the emergency klaxon.

Daniel moved out of the way. Clearly, the Asgard were back and whatever had happened last week would pale in comparison to the next. Daniel shook his head, worried for Jack, but that was normal. Hopefully, the Asgard wouldn't need anything. Hopefully, this was all just business as usual in the SGC.

End.

.

Yep, that's it. I would honestly love to hear if you like the end of the story. Thanks and take care. I appreciate all of the alerts, favs, etc. It was a fine experience. Thanks so much. Sam93


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